This online workshop will draw on an anti-racism and anti-Black racism perspective to examine social justice, systemic change and resistance in Ontario’s youth sector.
We will explore strategies promoted as part of anti-racism efforts such as critical reflexivity, organizational accountability and Black youth capacity building, and interrogate their applicability to racial justice and Black youth wellbeing.
We will expand the dialogue on change and resistance and delve beyond acceptable and approved strategies, which may inadvertently reinforce existing settler-colonial norms.
The workshop appeals to risky truth-telling, creativity and innovation in the development of practices and policies centered on Black communities' – and other racialized communities’ – notions of freedom and wellbeing.
The workshop will be facilitated by Maria Bernard, a doctoral candidate at the School of Social Work at York University, and will feature a guest presentation by Peter Amponsah, Associate Dean of the School of Community Studies at Sheridan College.
REGISTER HERE FOR THIS FREE EVENT TODAY!
About Maria Bernard
Maria Bernard is a doctoral candidate at the School of Social Work at York University with over ten years of experience in leadership positions in community-based youth organizations with a focus on improving outcomes for racialized youth in the City of Toronto. Her research explores how the inclusion of racialized youth in Ontario’s youth sector is tied to managing the moral panic around racial violence and buttresses neoliberal settler-colonial goals. She traces how governments and youth non-profit organizations have employed a variety of anti-racist discourses and funding strategies for the last thirty years that potentially reproduce marginalization, elide racism, and reinstate dominance. Her research and pedagogical values are firmly embedded in anti-racism, anti-Black racism, intersectionality, and de-colonial ethics. She draws from over ten years of work experience in leadership positions in community-based youth organizations with a focus on improving outcomes for racialized youth in the City of Toronto.
About Peter Amponsah
Peter Amponsah is Associate Dean of the School of Community Studies within the Faculty of Applied Health and Community Studies (FAHCS) at Sheridan College. He was previously a faculty member in the Child and Youth Care program. Peter holds a BSW and MSW with years of experience volunteering and working in the Child and Youth service sector in frontline, management and governance roles. Peter is currently pursuing a PhD in Social Work at York University, where he is investigating the subject-making processes within and outside of the child and youth care field, as well as how the field operates as a regime of truth. Peter believes in the transformative potential for culture informed education. As his passion, Peter studies, performs, and facilitates Afro-diasporic drum teachings to youth groups in community.
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