Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: Our aim for this special issue of the BJSW was to remove barriers and create spaces for people with lived and living experiences to share their perspectives, expertise and views on social work. The creative artefacts section of the special issue does just that. This section includes a wide range of engaging and thought-provoking submissions. Experiences and views shared are all the more powerful for being in the creative format that each contributor chose. In the following pages you will have the opportunity to read, hear, view and observe lived experiences and views in the forms of poetry, short films, photography, original artwork, narratives, collage, song lyrics and rap music. All lead contributors are people with lived experiences relevant to social work. All submissions were peer reviewed and selected by people with lived experience of social work through review panels we hosted in the UK and Australia. The panels have selected an eclectic mix of work capturing a range of lived experiences, demographics, areas of social work, and from a number of different countries. Some of these experiences may resonate, some may be difficult to hear but they are all uplifting. We encourage you to choose how and what to access. We invite you to engage with these submissions as you would a curated art exhibition. Each submission starts with a profile and introduction to the submission written by the contributor(s). You can choose to read this first before accessing the creative artefact itself or to read this after, just as you would at a curated art exhibition where you take your time to view and engage with an art form before perhaps reading the accompanying biography and background information via the card on the wall. We would like to thank each of the contributors for their creativity, honesty and insight and for making this such a powerful and moving collection of stories. Thanks to you also, the audience for engaging with this work.
DOI: 10.1093/bjsw/bcad067
Authors: Mel Hughes, Frank Golding
Language: English
Subfield: Public Administration
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4376620967