Sustainable Social Work: An Environmental Justice Framework for Social Work Education

The future of environmental social work: Looking to community initiatives for models of prevention

“…We acknowledge that much environmentally-focused community practice work, particularly in the environmental justice arena, has been carried out by community leaders and groups outside of social work. Nonetheless, social work practitioners have skill-sets that make us uniquely situated to support these practitioners and begin setting the stage for preventing future harm from environmental issues (Teixeira & Krings, 2015). Social work scholars can support community groups and practitioners in advancing environmental justice by approaching environmental degradation with an eye toward being proactive.…”

Integrating youth participation and ecosocial work: New possibilities to advance environmental and social justice

“…As social workers consider how the profession can contribute toward the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals of ending poverty, protecting the planet, and ensuring prosperity for all (Jones & Truell, 2012), effective interventions must engage with the people affected by environmental impacts (Teixeira & Krings, 2015). The Where I Stand Youth Summit illustrates the potential for integrating youth participation into ecosocial work -fields that both view the participation of impacted groups as a right.…”

Equity in sustainable development: Community responses to environmental gentrification

“…Rather, it reflects racial and class oppression and contributes to health disparities because people who are poor and people of color more often live concentrated in areas proximate to environmental contamination, lack access to environmental amenities, and hold limited influence in environmental decision making (Bullard, Mohai, Saha, & Wright, 2008; Mohai, Pellow, & Roberts, 2009). These communities are often the same places in which social workers provide services at individual, family, and community levels (Kemp, 2011; Teixeira & Krings, 2015). Yet, although the social work profession is committed to a person‐in‐environment perspective, it has largely defined “environment” as a social one, despite knowledge that the built and natural environments are related to health and wellbeing (Kemp, 2011; Miller, Hayward, & Shaw, 2012).…”

“…Scholarship relating to environmental social work is growing (Krings, Victor, Mathias, & Perron, 2018; Mason, Shires, Arwood, & Borst, 2017), and social work researchers have made important contributions to the first and second waves of environmental justice organizing. This innovative work has examined important issues relating to the application of environmental justice principles to social work practice (Dominelli, 2013; Hawkins, 2010; Hoff & Rogge, 1996) and education (Miller et al, 2012; Philip & Reisch, 2015; Teixeira & Krings, 2015); procedural justice concerns relating to environmental decision making (Rambaree, 2013); distributional justice issues, such as reducing exposure to toxins and contamination (Rogge & Combs‐Orme, 2003) and equitably providing environmental goods and services relating to food justice (Besthorn, 2013), and clean water (Akdim, El Harchaoui, Laaouan, & Soydan, 2012; Case, 2017; Mitchell, 2018; Singh & Singh, 2015; Willett, 2015). However, despite clear social work practice implications, there is a paucity of research pertaining to the third wave of environmental justice organizing and the potential to resist gentrification and displacement.…”