Using critical reflection to develop poverty-aware professionals

With Jan Fook & Michal Krumer-Nevo

This project aims to address the need for better poverty-awareness in social workers and teachers. It focuses on what is a problem for many socially-oriented professions: the conceptual gap between analysis and practice. In the case of poverty the gap is between societal levels of analysis and: 1. understandings of the personal experiences of poverty and 2. Resultant strategies applied at individual levels in teaching and social work practice. The project will develop pilot projects (using critical reflection) to uncover professionals’ hidden assumptions about people in poverty, and to help them devise changed practice strategies.