(Re)imagining new spaces for anti-racist social work: Policy deliberation as practice

The need for social work practitioners to be involved in policy as practice is well acknowledged within the social work professional discourse (Weiss-Gal, 2017). In addition to practice knowledge needed for social work, critical reflection and reflexivity around how professional power operates have also been widely accepted as important core skills for practitioners (Parton & O’Byrne, 2000; Taylor & White, 2000). Over the past decade, various scholars have highlighted the inherent dangers of oppression when social work moves away from critical and reflexive practice (Ferguson, 2018; Powell, 2002; D’Cruz, 2004; D’Cruz and Jones, 2004). However, very little attention has been paid to the potential that policy deliberation has for challenging neoliberal policy frameworks.