Revolutionizing Clinical Services Using an Anti-Racist Community Practice Model. Led by Joshua Ware, LMSW.

This 6-hour course expands on the dialogue regarding children of incarcerated parents by recognizing that the phenomenon known as mass incarceration is associated with conscious and unconscious racial practices in clinical practice. Contextual factors like structural racism compound the impacts of mass incarceration on children and have the potential to create inherent biases in clinicians and the general population alike. This presentation explores and recommends solutions to “anti-blackness” in clinical practice, which refers to the unconscious racist beliefs and practices that fail to account for the historical and contextual needs and issues specific to populations affected by mass incarceration.

Children of Promise, NYC was the first to establish this community practice orientation using evidence-informed treatment modalities with the specific population of children of incarcerated parents. Trauma symptoms exhibited by children and adolescents, generally follow a similar symptomatology: depression, anger, isolating and self-harming behaviors, cognitive distortions, and escalated symptoms of physical distress. Therefore, this trauma-focused modality is applicable to the treatment of the childhood trauma of parental incarceration just as to other forms of childhood trauma. This presentation explores the psychological manifestation of trauma symptoms related to parental incarceration and lays the groundwork for the implementation of Children of Promise, NYC’s community-based treatment modality.

Through its integration of the micro-level clinical interventions, along with the mezzo and macro-level identification of the historical and present day oppression of parental incarceration, attendees will gain a holistic approach to identifying the trauma of parental incarceration and best practices in treating children of incarcerated parents.

About the Instructor

Joshua Ware, LMSW is a clinical social worker for Mental Health Services Corp at SUNY Downstate’s Family Health clinic and a specialist in anti-oppressive clinical practice for Children of Promise, NYC.

Mr. Ware’s expertise and curricula focus on dismantling the stigma of mental health care within the Black/Caribbean community to foster healing and self-love. Mr. Ware’s work primarily involves psychotherapy with adults who would not be able to afford therapy otherwise. He also participates in policy work within mezzo and macro practice around undoing the system of mass incarceration. Mr. Ware has developed the curriculum for a college-level course at Sing Sing Correctional Facility; he also co-created the Mass Incarceration Conversation Series (MICS) at the New York University Silver School of Social Work. Mr. Ware has presented his work around dismantling anti-blackness in social work with Children of Promise, NYC at the NASW-NYC Conference, as well as at the National Conference in Washington, DC.

This 3-hour course uses a historical framework that will allow participants to understand the influence of racial prejudice. Social work is not exempt from the paradigms of anti-blackness, and its toxic teachings, which perpetuate a cycle of dehumanization. As practitioners, we find ourselves cycling the master's tools of silence and complacency in the face of black suffering. It is imperative that we understand how deeply rooted our perceptions of blackness are in this country, and how they affect our ability to serve those who are impacted directly by this system. This is a shift that is required on not only the macro and mezzo levels, but also at the micro level, in our daily interactions. In this conversation, we will be applying theories such as Critical Consciousness, Cultural Humility, and Critical Race Theory with the goal of employing what they teach us into clinical praxis.

About the Instructor

Joshua Ware, LMSW is a clinical social worker for Mental Health Services Corp at SUNY Downstate’s Family Health clinic and a specialist in anti-oppressive clinical practice for Children of Promise, NYC.

Mr. Ware’s expertise and curricula focus on dismantling the stigma of mental health care within the Black/Caribbean community to foster healing and self-love. Mr. Ware’s work primarily involves psychotherapy with adults who would not be able to afford therapy otherwise. He also participates in policy work within mezzo and macro practice around undoing the system of mass incarceration. Mr. Ware has developed the curriculum for a college-level course at Sing Sing Correctional Facility; he also co-created the Mass Incarceration Conversation Series (MICS) at the New York University Silver School of Social Work. Mr. Ware has presented his work around dismantling anti-blackness in social work with Children of Promise, NYC at the NASW-NYC Conference, as well as at the National Conference in Washington, DC.