Katelyn
In my spoken letter, I struggled to find words to begin to address this issue. Ultimately, I turned to art, to give myself a way to express and explore my thoughts in a different way. This process was emotional but helped me make sense of where I was regarding this topic. throughout the video, I show a time lapse of the process of creating this painting. After an introduction, I wrote a brief spoken word expression of my thoughts around racism within social services, addressing it to “the system”. Personifying the system allowed for me to address my confusion and frustration. Then I move into reflections from a conversation with a community member about social services, bringing it into findings from a report that my workplace released last week (HARS, 2021), then narrowing into the topic of substance use with discussion of decolonizing harm reduction to address systemic discrimination. The medicine wheel (Marsh et al., 2015) and centering Indigenous practices are discussed as ways to decolonise social services (Interagency Coalition on Aids and Development, 2019). The painting incorporates the ideas of collaboration and holistic principles imaged through the colours of the medicine wheel, all meeting at a representative gathering place. The process of creating this spoken letter was not linear and did not solidify until the final audio clip was added. I am grateful for the opportunity to express learning in a non-academic way and continue a commitment for decolonizing social work practice.
