 connections. I'm your host Grace Cheng and I'm here today with Jessica Garluk, lecturer of social work at Hawaii Pacific University. And the topic we're going to be talking about today is decolonizing social work. So hello Jessica and welcome to Global Connections. Hi Grace, thank you so much for having me. Thank you for coming on the program. Of course. So this topic sounds really interesting and I think it'll be really fascinating to know also about your experiences and this concept about social work and why it might need to be decolonized. So can you give us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in this? Sure and I think over the course of our discussion it's kind of a journey in terms of how I got to decolonizing social work so hopefully we can kind of go through some of that today. I'm originally from a small town in Ohio and have been in Hawaii since 2003 now. I came to Hawaii after serving in the Peace Corps in Western Samoa, was at the University of Hawaii for several years in a couple of different positions and just joined HPU's faculty full-time in 2016. Okay great and so what were some of these experiences that led you to this this field? Sure I grew up in a household where I guess social justice and social work was just part of everyday life. My mother ran an agency that worked with folks who were HIV positive as that was hitting the world in the 80s and 90s so it was something that was instilled in me from a very young age. I went to pursue my undergraduate degree and started out in English of all things and at some point during that journey decided that my passion was really around social work and social justice kinds of issues. I would say that one of the things that really kind of got me started down that path was a trip that I took with a Spanish professor to be a monitor for the elections in El Salvador after the Civil War ended. Yeah and so being able to go and see what voting looked like in another country to see the conditions that people were living in after the Civil War I think for the first time really got me thinking about things in a more global way instead of kind of the small town that I grew up in or the United States as a whole. Yeah so that's interesting coming from a small town but having that exposure to social work and social services and justice issues how did yes how did you how did you kind of transfer that kind of a concept through your international experiences because I know you're interested in international social work too because right so I was really lucky to have that experience in my undergraduate education in graduate school I was very lucky to have two more experiences one traveling to Costa Rica for an international social work conference so I was able to go there and kind of learn more about just that concept of international social work and to see what social work looked like in another setting and in another culture and was also able I took a class in comparative social policy with a professor and as part of our course we spent three weeks in Cuba doing research and learning about social systems and social work there and I think that kind of galvanized my experiences and and my thoughts and really kind of made me want to pursue this throughout my career in terms of you know taking advantage of opportunities internationally but also helping people understand even in the United States that what we do is not in isolation and that's kind of the premise of international social work it's not that you're necessarily working overseas or in another country but that you're looking at the impact that policy decisions and other things have impact on people all over the world so I think most recently I mean you can talk about the immigration ban and you can see the impact that it's had throughout the United States but as well as the rest of the world there are at least two families that were supposed to come to Hawaii who are not gonna come here now and so looking at how that's gonna impact those families those decisions have a big impact not just locally but globally mm-hmm okay wow so yeah we hear a lot about people who are coming over about to come over and sold all of their things right and ready to move and reunite or unite with their families here in the US but aren't able to so yeah there's definitely a deep you know ramifications of the policy so international social work is kind of something that promotes an awareness of that or can you talk about the differences maybe if you were studying social work and then you studied international social work separately right and so they think that's kind of part of what my journey was was first kind of getting that overseas experience whether that was in El Salvador whether that was in Cuba eventually joining the Peace Corps and I signed up and you know was young and a little naive and you know wanted to go to Samoa and thought I had all the tools that I needed and walked into a system that was very different than what I was used to and while my education was valuable it wasn't necessarily as applicable as I wanted it to be social work overall is a very kind of Western centric model and it's really about international social work is really about making sure that other models are honored in that process right it's not just one way and there's lots of other systems and cultural practices that are just as valid and just as useful and we have to employ those tools just like we would other ones mm-hmm what are the what are some main differences you've encountered as far as like if you're if you're going to a separate a different setting and you assume that the American social work model would work but what kind of yeah what kind of problems have you encountered with with trying to implement that in a different setting yeah I mean I think it happens both internationally I think it happens when we work with migrants here I guess an example for me was that I spent three years in Samoa working with families there on a variety of issues but that context was in a situation where they all had access to land they all had access to resources part of the reason that I got the job that I did when I first moved to Hawaii was because of my experience in Samoa but I quickly found out that working with Samoan families here was very different right there was still a lot of misunderstanding about the Samoan community here a lot of stereotypes and misunderstanding as well as a general lack of access to resources so I think when you you know think about the Samoan community 10 or 20 years ago the discussion is very similar to what you hear about folks from cofa countries or Micronesia these days right it's the same kind of stigma and rhetoric and wanting to blame but it's you know working with people in the setting that they're in and so I think working with families here it's really taking into consideration their cultural beliefs right who is the person that's responsible for making decisions for the family making sure that there's translation services available and those kinds of things and that's something that we wouldn't necessarily need or think about if we were doing it in someone's country of origin so yeah it sounds like you know institutions and our practices they really emerge out of our particular setting but international social work is trying to kind of make that model more responsive or flexible to to local conditions and situational factors definitely and really you know I think bridging some of that gap I mean there's a couple of social workers here in Hawaii now that are from different parts of Micronesia in that region and they're really essential in bridging that gap of understanding on both sides and helping folks here understand this is how a family setup is and this is how decisions are made and these are people that exist in our culture in our community who don't have a social work degree but are very valuable in resolving conflicts or providing some kind of healing and I think that's a big part of international social work and I think eventually decolonizing social work in terms of helping people understand that there's not this universal answer for everybody that we really need to work with an individual and a culture in a really respectful way and honor their practices and help them access those the same way that we would help them access more Western services. I mean as far as internationally social work models elsewhere in the world their origins are their origins organic like coming from their own settings or do they try to import you know existing models from from elsewhere and and how is how is that experience at least initially before this concept of international social work and the awareness of this kinds of distinctions came up. Right I mean I think that happened very organically and different I mean and of course it varies largely from society to site society my general knowledge is around the Pacific right and of many island cultures evolve to have structure and very specific roles for people whether it was around medicinal healing and plants and knowledge versus spiritual health and well-being and I think in the process of colonization a lot of that was taken away and so I think part of the role of social workers now is to help folks access those services again and access that knowledge so that part of their culture is something that they have access to. That's interesting I never appreciated that that dimension of social work I mean if you're if you're not in the field of social work and you don't have a lot of contact with with that service I think yeah the impression is what we get from you know popular culture which doesn't really address yeah like the whole range of different populations right that that social workers work with. Very much so I think there's a really specific idea that people have about social workers and what they do and I think social workers themselves need to be better at kind of talking about some of the other things that we do on a more kind of macro or community or policy level but yeah I think it's important for people to understand that we're not just doing child welfare we're not just doing mental health there's a very wide breadth of things that we do in our profession. Yeah and given you know how how much immigrants and and you know the second-generation makeup you know our society I think that's probably a lot you know a big part of it that's not really represented very much but interesting yeah that social work is has really been responding to this and I can especially imagine yeah with with newly arriving immigrants or yeah as you were saying earlier with the families that that can't be reunited there's gotta be lots of you know stresses upon them definitely definitely and we're really lucky at HPU to have students from a lot of different countries right now I'm working with a student from Saudi Arabia as well as a student from Korea the student from Saudi Arabia is working with the Pacific Gateway Center and he specifically works with recent immigrants and refugee families and I think because of his position and not having lived in the US for a very long time can really empathize and relate and be accessible to folks who are coming here for the first time and the student that I'm working with from Korea is working with an agency that provides adoption services especially with folks and a lot of that is international adoptions from like China and Korea okay yeah well really interesting Jessica yeah all right well well stay tuned we'll come back and speak more with Jessica Garlick about the topic of decolonizing social work my name is Mark Shklov and I'm the host of Law Across the Sea and Law Across the Sea is a program that brings attorneys who have traveled across the sea and live in Hawaii or are staying in Hawaii for a time to talk about their travels where they're from where they're going and bring it all together because really we're all connected some way although we travel across the sea so hope that you'll tune in and watch our program thank you very much I've got the Beagle sisters here with a healthy tip we encourage you to enjoy the food you eat this holiday season and keep it local and healthy yeah eat the rainbow in your rainbow and if you need any produce come to the red barn on the north shore aloha and happy new year it's 2017 please keep up with me on power up Hawaii where Hawaii comes together to talk about a clean and just energy future please join me on Tuesdays at 1 o'clock Mahalo welcome back to global connections I'm your host Grace Chang and I'm here with Jessica Garlick talking about the topic of decolonizing social work welcome back Jessica thank you so much so we were talking before the break about your experiences and the concept of international social work its distinction from what I think we typically think of as conventional social work but this this topic that you raise of decolonizing social work is really interesting can you say a little bit more about that and what that and what that means and why that's you know why that's necessary sure I mean I guess I have to first kind of give thanks to actually a profession or a group of scholars outside of social work where I really first started exploring this idea and that was with the Center for Pacific Island Studies at the University of Hawaii they have a master's degree in Pacific Island Studies and that discussion of decolonization is a very big part of their education and I was lucky to take a couple of courses over there and in that process I really started to think about you know how does this relate to social work how does this relate to social work in Hawaii right a place that is essentially occupied by the United States after the illegal overthrow and so what does that mean and how do social workers work with native Hawaiians and other allies to address those issues right we're talking about addressing things that have happened historically trauma that happens over periods of times to generations of people and people weren't really talking about cultural trauma 10 or 15 years ago and I think more and more we're hearing that discussion at least within the social work and mental health arena but in that process I also developed a course on decolonizing social work that I've been able to teach and a big part of that is kind of just helping people understand colonization and what that process was it wasn't a series of random events it was a very kind of planful and thought-out process and in order to work towards decolonizing we there's steps involved in that as well but I think one of those things for a lot of students many of whom I had that were local or Hawaiian you know did not know about for example the boarding schools for Native Americans or know about the lost generation in Australia and so helping people connect to those different things that were happening happening around a similar time but what it looked like in different parts of the world I think as an instructor it's been nice for me to kind of see them connect those dots and understand that colonization didn't just happen here in Hawaii it happened in a lot of different places and it looked very different in some of those places so the way that it gets addressed is going to be a little different everywhere yeah so this effort to try to historicize well some of the like and understand the legacies today that's very interesting right Hawaii in particular and you have you're mentioning us students you have from a range of different backgrounds and so this is as far as this field of work and of study it's quite is it quite well represented would you say about as far as people you know from across the spectrum of American society yeah I mean I think in general it's a very diverse group of people regardless kind of age of ethnic identity of gender of sexual orientation and I think that's part of what draws people to social work people aren't going to want to do this kind of work if they're not appreciative of diversity in different cultures and those kinds of things it's in our code of ethics that we have to value cultural competence and relevance and so those are kind of the laws that that govern our profession and so yeah if people aren't excited about that they're probably not going to enjoy the profession very much and and social workers are you know you teach a course on decolonizing social work do you feel that in the profession you know in the various settings you've had experience with it has that been achieved successfully or is there you know and a concerted effort to decolonize social work I think it's happening in a couple of different ways it's still a relatively new topic to work it's not something that's being discussed super widely I think in general people are talking more about work with indigenous groups which is part I think of that process of getting to discussing decolonization but I think overall I mean there's a movement within social work educators to talk about what that decolonizing process looks like I actually have a student right now who's doing research and talking to academics about their thoughts on what decolonization or indigenization might look like so I'm really excited to see what that turns into and then it's also at a very grassroots level in terms of engaging with community agencies and having that discussion I think it's just trying to connect people with groups and with agencies that are doing work that's tied to that or where colonization is an active part of the discussion where they're making connections to things that happen historically and bring them into present-day discussion about how that continue to and continues to impact different groups of people and when you talk about people in the social work as a profession we're talking about people not just working in the government social work administration bureaucracy but also in terms of organizations as well right how are they how do you think the government is doing as far as compared to maybe some other grassroots or social organization I think the the roles are quite different in the government setting versus a more kind of nonprofit or social entrepreneurship kind of initiative I mean I don't think there's a whole lot of discussion about decolonization happening for folks that are in government positions and that are social workers at least maybe not at work that might be a discussion that's happening elsewhere but there are lots of organizations here especially Hawaiian organizations where there are social workers who are active and a part of that discussion and where it's being discussed in social work education so I think it's you know still a relatively small group but I think it's happening more and more in terms of people paying attention having the discussion mm-hmm it sounds like it's something that's very relevant I mean and it's important for recognizing the diversity of our communities around not only around the country but around the world I mean this idea of decolonizing does it extend to you know not necessarily immigrant populations or or you know indigenous populations but you know I mean from decolonization that you kind of get the sense of you want to decolonize your thinking mm-hmm I let that is to to kind of not think in the hegemonic way right thinking more ways that are more attentive to maybe people who have been not at the center maybe less you know more in the peripheries of power right and that's yeah in the in the course that I teach that's one of the kind of sections that we focus on we focus on a little bit of the history of colonization we talk a little bit about how that impacts our practices social workers we talk about the policy implications of colonization that are still relevant today and there's been some great work done by a variety of writers and scholars that have to do with how powerful that colonization process is on our psyche and how difficult it is to change our thinking around some of those things so I remember I mean I often ask students you know what would happen what do you think would happen if Hawaii was no longer a state and it really takes people back and it's hard for them to imagine anything else like what do you mean we get all this money and we have this and it's very hard to kind of break that thinking and get it outside of that box not just for students but I think for everybody so I yeah regularly challenge them to think about what that might look like mm-hmm okay well can you talk about kind of a yeah a particular example of how we might decolonize social work practice or a practice that represents decolonizing effort sure I think one of the things that social workers here can do is really kind of look at what that process looks like and be a part of that either through their professional day-to-day lives or as private citizens and allies to those individuals and communities that are working on that po Kalei Nui who is a social worker here from Hawaii kind of talks about what that process of decolonization is and that first process is kind of rediscovery and recovery getting back in touch with culture and respecting that I think an example of that here would be like the Hawaiian Renaissance that happened in the 70s we're continuing to see that with the Polynesian Voyaging Society and those kinds of things and I think there were social workers involved in those different organizations and programs and that's one way that we can actively kind of support what that is looking like mm-hmm okay well as far as the process of this process of decolonizing how do you how do you envision it expanding like the discussion and you know the idea of being kind of more integrated or helping rethink social work practices I think it's really having those discussions and having those discussions individually or in small groups I think part of this process that is very different than colonization is that it's not a one size fits all and this is not a directive necessarily but this is about different groups of people determining what this looks like for them and for social workers in some situations right who are from those different places and of those cultures to really be leaders of that and for someone like me who's not from Hawaii or Hawaiian is really just being an ally and supporting people in those endeavors and in other situations you know just helping people access information and helping share what they're working on with other people because I think a lot of times there's so much information coming at us at all of it all of the time and making sure that people know what's really going on in the community mm-hmm so so just to wrap it up as far as social work in in Hawaii years you think that there's been some good strides and any any last thoughts about decolonizing social work and where we can go with it sure I mean I encourage people to I mean there's a lot of great information out there a lot of documentaries and there's a lot of groups working on it so I encourage people to find out what's going on locally in their community and I think the future is kind of up to us in terms of how we want to see that work out okay great thank you so much Jessica thank you so much for having me you're welcome thank you for joining us at Global Connections here today I'm your host Grace Chang and we're wrapping up discussion with Jessica Harlock on decolonizing social work see you next Thursday at 1 p.m.