Social Justice Conference

Registration deadline: Thursday, May 2

Judith S. Willison, PhD, LCSW, will address the unprecedented trend of mass incarceration in the U.S. and the repressive effects of supervision and withdrawal of citizenship rights post-imprisonment that disproportionately affects non-white communities.

Topics discussed include:

• the delineation phenomenon of extreme social exile resulting from mass incarceration and its relevance to social work education, research, and practice.
• the implications of institutionalized white supremacy and its relation to the workings of the justice and other systems in perpetuating the "civic-death" of persons who have undergone imprisonment.
• exploring the intersection of individual, structural, and contextual risk correlates among women incarcerated for violent crime and offer a feminist analysis of targeted mass incarceration related to social justice issues in order to illuminate the intersections of multiple oppressions at play.

8:00 - 8:30 am Registration 

8:30 am - 12:00 pm
Morning Keynote Address:
The Cost of Social Exile: Race, Class, and Mass Incarceration in the US
Judith S. Willison, Ph.D., LICSW

12:00 - 1:00 pm Field Instructors Appreciation Luncheon

1:00 - 4:00 pm
Afternoon Paper Presentations:
MSW Candidates will offer paper presentations on a variety of current topics across all fields of practice. Social work best practices will be examined and critiqued through an empowerment lens, in consideration of an evidence base, theoretical foundation, policy perspective, practice implication, and ethical consequence.

Continuing Education
This conference meets criteria of the Iowa Board of Social Work Examiners for continuing social work education for a maximum of 6.0 hours. St. Ambrose School of Social Work is a licensed provider of social work education through the Illinois Department of Professional and Financial Regulation and will grant a maximum of 6.0 continuing social work education (IDPFR lic #159-000816).