Announcement:
The Vermont Child Welfare Training Partnership (VT-CWTP) is proud to announce that we are changing the name of our podcast to THE SOCIAL WORK LENS.
Here at VT-CWTP we are committed to racial justice work; this includes use of intentional and inclusive language. It recently came to our attention the term ‘the field’ in our old title: Welcome to the Field, has racist conations, specifically for those who come from a people who were kidnapped, raped, exploited for racial capitalism. Because the term ‘the field” and ‘fieldworker” are rooted in chattel slavery, there is historical, institutional, personal and persistent trauma associated with those terms.
We are aware that changing language to be racially responsive, and inclusive is a lightning rod topic right now. We have heard comments ranging from: this has gone too far, to where does it end? We believe that language and terminology will continue to evolve, and updating language and terms will be an ongoing process.
In this case, since racial and social justice is such a big part of our podcast and our work, it felt important to remove any term that perpetuates racial harm from our name. We are choosing to rebrand in an effort to minimize possible harm because it is in our power to do so.
Moving forward, please find us under the name: THE SOCIAL WORK LENS.
If you want to learn more about our decision to remove ‘the field’, please go back and listen to our last episode, with Corey Best and Janie Beaudry, as they talk about Child Welfare with Justice as the Through Line.
From The Social Work Lens, I’m Cassie Gillespie and we’ll see you next time.