Adapting to Ubuntu: How social workers can spark change

This webinar is relevant to social work students, practitioners and academics and those with an interest in how leadership can support public systems to adapt to new ways of working.

The event will be chaired by Robin Miller, Professor of Collaborative Learning in Health & Social Care at the University of Birmingham and will feature Linda Lausell Bryant, MSW, PH.D, Clinical Associate Professor, Director of the Doctorate in Social Work program, and Director of the Adaptive Leadership in Human Services Institute at NYU Silver and Marc Ross Manashil, MPA, MSW, Adjunct Assistant Professor and Co-Founder of the Adaptive Leadership in Human Services Institute at NYU's Silver School of Social Work.

Ubuntu: ‘I am because we are’ is a concept and philosophy that resonates with the social work perspective of the interconnectedness of all peoples and their environments. It speaks to the need for global solidarity and also highlights indigenous knowledge and wisdom.

Whilst social work values have always reflected the need for interconnections within society and the need to build solidarity within and between communities to address inequalities, it is evident that much has to be done before this vision becomes a reality for all. Gaining the trust of excluded communities and addressing structural discrimination will require changing of established practices and cultural norms within our own profession and organisations. Furthermore, embedding such change across wider society will require commitment and change from across our wider welfare and political systems.

Ubuntu is therefore not just a question of technical correction to existing practice and processes but a radical transformation of how we see the world and our ability to influence its norms and values. Leadership is key to such transformation through facilitating discussion about common vision, encouraging innovative forms of collaboration, and holding people as they transition to an exciting but uncertain new reality.

The Silver School of Social Work in New York has pioneered the embedding of leadership development within their graduate and doctoral social work curriculums to better prepare future and current social workers for the challenges and opportunities of leadership. In this World Social Work day webinar, Dr Linda Lausell Bryant and Marc Manashil will share the basis of their leadership framework and what they have learnt from many years of supporting social workers develop their leadership.