Publishing award scholar explores social work in troubled times from Reconstruction to today

December 2, 2024 by Sue Robinson Sain

VCU Libraries’ Social Welfare History Project (SWHP) announces the publication of “Social Work in Divisive Times: Navigating Dual Roles Across Eras and Movements” by Justin S. Harty, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at Arizona State University School of Social Work. In addition to his teaching and scholarship, Harty has a background as a licensed clinical social worker and foster care professional in Chicago. His research is supported by a VCU Publishing Research Award.

In “Social Work in Divisive Times” Justin Harty grapples with the multifaceted nature of the social work profession: dedicated to offering support and advocacy to vulnerable populations, but at times causing harm to those the profession intended to help. From the Reconstruction Era to the current movements for antiracism and anticolonialism, Harty reveals how social work’s history is marked by continuous efforts to redefine and realign its practices with the ever-evolving demands of social justice.

Digital Outreach and Special Projects Librarian Alice Campbell explained the importance of this scholarship for VCU Libraries: “The SWHP is widely used as a classroom resource for the preparation of social work and social policy students. Justin Harty’s article provides an historical overview of how complicated it is both to build and to be part of a profession. In social work history we see a constant back-and-forth between efforts to make society more just and endeavors that meet individuals’ immediate needs. We work for an end to poverty, but in the meantime people must be fed and housed. And sometimes, even the best intentions will be wrong-headed or derailed by human failings. Harty gives readers a solid place to stand as they consider how knowledge of the past can inform current and future policy and practice.”

As the most recent recipient of a VCU Publishing Research Award, Harty joins a diverse group of researchers in social welfare history whose work has been supported by the Hansan Family Foundation.

Established in 2022, the VCU Publishing Research Award enables publication of new voices to the online Social Welfare History Project. Researchers have published in the SWHP on many subjects including veteran care, disability education, and elderly homelessness, and their articles encompass a geographic area from local Richmond history to national issues and the concerns of U.S. territories.

Previous recipients supported by VCU Publishing Research Awards:

–G. Jasper Conner, The Education of Deaf and Blind African Americans in Virginia, 1909-2008
–Sarah Shepherd , West Virginia Colored Orphans Home (1899-1956) and Reciprocal Aid: Fraternalism and Early Social Welfare History
–Annette Jennings, World War II and the Social Work Profession: The Veterans Administration Response to Crisis and History of the Veterans Affairs Caregiver Support Program
–Jessica Samuel, Precarious Learners: Race, Status and the Making of Virgin Islands Education from 1917-1970
–Willnette Cunningham with Shruti Sathish, Lessons From the Real Me
–Angela Lehman, Ora Brown Stokes and the Richmond Neighborhood Association
–Madelena Eifert, The Elderly Homeless Crisis: History and Origins

The Social Welfare History Project continues to recruit and recognize new and enlightening research with the support of the Hansan Family Foundation. Scholars interested in publishing to the SWHP in the field of social welfare history and in learning more about the VCU Publishing Research Awards are encouraged to contact the Project via email, [email protected].