The annual Social Workers Confronting Racial Injustice Conference at UW–Madison featured four breakout sessions with Indigenous presenters, one on January 28 and three on February 4.
The conference was online, open to all, and free to attend; each day had a different line-up.
Friday, January 28, 2022, 2:00-3:30pm:
Reclaiming Indigenous Kinship and Resisting Ongoing Colonialism in the Child Welfare System
Cary Waubanascum; Selena Garza
After this session, participants will be able to define ongoing colonialism as a problem in child welfare, examine the experiences of Indigenous relative caregivers with the child welfare system, describe how Indigenous relative caregivers are reclaiming and living their traditional kinship and protecting Indigenous children from ongoing colonialism. This session will conclude with a discussion of ideas and desires for a decolonial form of child welfare.
Friday, February 4, 2022, 12:00-1:30pm:
Unmasking The Hidden Crises of Missing, Murdered and Indigenous Women & Girls
Lynette Grey Bull
Unmasking The Hidden Crises of Missing, Murdered and Indigenous Women & Girls is designed is to give participants in in-depth look into tribal communities. Overview on statistics on Native American and Alaskan Natives communities, Violence Against Native American Women, and MMIW.
Tribal Child Welfare Practices
Nick Van Zile; Esie Leoso-Corbine, Tibissum Rice, Rebecca Benton; Abby Dall
Innovations in Tribal Child Welfare practices focusing on Culture is Prevention.
Tired Of Dancing To Their Song: An Assessment of the Indigenous Women’s Reproductive Justice Funding Landscape
Zachary Packineau; Coya White Hat-Artichoker
In early 2021, the Ms. Foundation and the Collaborative for Gender and Reproductive Equity first convened Indigenous women leaders to identify vital funding needs for Indigenous women, and what emerged was the lack of quality health care and that the limits placed on Native women’s reproductive choices are directly tied to colonization. Instead of being relegated to a secondary issue, Indigenous women’s reproductive justice must be put front and center and made part of a fully inclusive conversation. This assessment, which is a continuation of that work and informed by an Indigenous Women’s Council, shows how funders’ priorities are not aligned with the needs of the very people who are most lacking reproductive justice.