The Social Worker / Le travailleur social

As the Canadian Association of Social Workers marks 100 years, The Social Worker Podcast examines where the profession has been and where it’s going. The Social Worker Podcast brings forward the voices, stories, and lived experiences that have shaped, and continue to shape social work in Canada. Each episode invites practitioners and leaders to reflect on the profession’s legacy, confront its harms, and imagine a more just future. Real stories, honest conversations, and a century of learning. Learn more about CASW here: https://www.casw-acts.ca/en/about-us/about-casw Alors que l'Association canadienne des travailleurs sociaux célèbre son centenaire, Le balado du Travailleur social revient sur le parcours de la profession et se penche sur son avenir. Le podcast « The Social Worker » donne la parole aux personnes, aux r

The Social Worker / Le travailleur social is a business podcast hosted by CASW | ACTS, with 14 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

CASW | ACTS hosts The Social Worker / Le travailleur social, a business show with 14 episodes published.

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  Episode #15

  The social worker With Huda Adnan

  Sep 18, 202627 minS1

  In this episode of The Social Worker Podcast, we speak with Huda Adnan as part of CASW's special series celebrating 100 years of social work in Canada. Huda's path into the profession began where many do: in a family of helpers. Drawn to community and to the work of supporting others, she went straight from high school into her social work program, and found herself, at seventeen, the only visibly Muslim woman in the room. In those early years she tried to blend in, to smooth over the ways she stood out, naming only "Canadian" when asked to locate herself. It was a young Muslim girl in a school program who changed that, running up to her, telling her you look just like me , and holding on. That moment, more than a decade later, still anchors how Huda carries her identity into every space she enters. Community mental health remains the heart of her practice, even as her career has carried her through newcomer and refugee support, nonprofit work, consulting, and now private practice. That shift, she reflects, was never the plan. It grew out of frustration, out of watching systems fail her racialized, Black, and Indigenous clients, and out of a decision that the way to advocate was to step inside the very structures that hadn't made room for her. The private space she now holds came, in the end, at the community's request. Throughout the conversation, Huda speaks honestly about what it means to practice as a racialized Muslim woman in rooms that don't always reflect her, from the quiet dismissals of her credentials to a client who questioned her humanity aloud while colleagues stayed silent, and the one person, another racialized client, who spoke up. She reminds us that allyship is not a statement but an action, that knowing your rights and your policies is its own form of protection, and that the discomfort others project is rarely about us at all. She is candid, too, about the toll of this work, and about the relationships and collective culture that have kept her grounded through it. Huda leaves listeners with the advice she returns to again and again with the students and therapists she supervises: build your community from the very start, and don't burn your bridges. The field is big and small at once, she reminds us, and the relationships we tend, intentionally and generously, are the ones that carry us through a whole career.

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  Episode #14

  The Social Worker Interview with Dr. Cindy Blackstock and Andrew Eckert Pt. 2

  Sep 4, 202648 minS1

  In part two of this conversation on The Social Worker Podcast, we continue with Dr. Cindy Blackstock and Andrew Eckert as part of CASW's special series celebrating 100 years of social work in Canada. Where the first episode opened the door to the courtroom, this one steps further inside. We pick up in a place the profession is increasingly being drawn into, one it was not always trained for: class action litigation affecting First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples. Social workers are being asked to provide research that supports certification, to develop criteria for distributing compensation, to advise on supports for class members, and sometimes to serve as expert witnesses. It is work with real stakes, and real ethical risk. Andrew Eckert, staff lawyer with the Independent Class Action Clinic at the University of Windsor, walks us through what a class action actually is, and the question too easily overlooked: when the invitation arrives from class counsel, who does the social worker actually work for. Dr. Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, draws on a landmark human rights case and her own family's experience to name the four core risks at the heart of the practice standards she is drafting: independence, conflicts of interest, payment arrangements, and evidentiary integrity. Together they trace the tensions that do not resolve on their own. What happens when settlements climb into the tens or hundreds of millions and the harm itself is never stopped. Why compensating the past is not the same as changing the future. What becomes of research data gathered for one purpose when it is later sought for another, sometimes by actors outside the reach of Canadian law. And how a social worker holds their duty to the court and to the community when the pressure to revise an opinion comes from elsewhere. This episode invites us to practice ethics in the light rather than in the dark: to know what a class action is before stepping into one, to ask what the world looks like a year after the checks are cut, and to be prepared to be fired rather than sign off on an opinion you cannot stand behind. Dr. Blackstock and Andrew Eckert leave listeners with a grounding reminder for the next century of social work: know the space you are entering before you enter it, keep your primary duty with the communities you are called to serve, and have the moral courage to hold the line even when the chips are down. Listen to the full series celebrating 100 years of social work in Canada: https://www.casw-acts.ca/en/social-worker-podcast

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  Episode #13

  The Social Worker Interview with Dr. Cindy Blackstock and Andrew Eckert

  Aug 21, 20261 hourS1

  Social workers are increasingly being asked into the courtroom, and the ethical stakes are higher than most of us realize. In this episode of The Social Worker Podcast, we speak with Dr. Cindy Blackstock and Andrew Eckert as part of CASW's special series celebrating 100 years of social work in Canada. The conversation looks at a place the profession is being drawn into, one it was not always trained for: class action litigation. Across the country, social workers are being asked to support class actions affecting First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples through reports, expert evidence, research, and help with implementation. It is work with real stakes, and real ethical risk. Dr. Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, came to this work through a landmark human rights case and through her own family's experience. Andrew Eckert, staff lawyer with the Independent Class Action Clinic at the University of Windsor, came to it through the class members who are too often left without a voice at the bargaining table. Together they map the terrain a social worker enters when the invitation arrives from class counsel, when there is money on the table, and when the harms are so severe that settlements climb into the billions. Throughout the conversation, they return to a set of quiet tensions that do not resolve on their own. Where does a social worker's duty lie when the pursuit of compensation comes into conflict with the deeper goal of systemic change. What happens to research data gathered for one purpose when it is later sought for another. Who is an expert actually working for when their duty is to the court, but the pressure comes from elsewhere. This episode invites us to think about ethics as something practiced in the light rather than in the dark. Sometimes that means learning what a class action is before stepping into one. Sometimes it means naming a conflict of interest and refusing to let small compromises accumulate into a violation. Dr. Blackstock and Andrew Eckert leave listeners with a grounding reminder for the next century of social work: the best apology is changed behaviour, know what space you are entering before you enter it, and have the moral courage to stand behind the ethics of the profession even when the chips are down. Listen to the full series celebrating 100 years of social work in Canada: https://www.casw-acts.ca/en/social-worker-podcast

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  Episode #12

  The social Worker Interview with Mabel Lam

  Aug 7, 202629 minS1

  In this episode of The Social Worker Podcast , we speak with Mabel Lam as part of CASW's special series celebrating 100 years of social work in Canada. Mabel's journey began with a conviction she carried from a young age in Hong Kong: a simple, stubborn desire to help people and to see them treated with dignity and genuine humanity. That desire became a profession, and that profession became a bridge between two very different worlds. That thread has followed her across schools, newcomer organizations, domestic violence victim services, and eventually the Government of Alberta's Victims of Crime Assistance Program. It has also deepened through her own experience of immigration, arriving in Canada in the wake of the pandemic, rebuilding a career from the ground up, and learning a new system through trial and error, so that she could turn around and light the path for the newcomers coming after her. Throughout the conversation, Mabel reflects on what it means to practice social work across cultures and in the quieter corners of the profession, the outreach visits, the letters where every detail matters, the spaces where care does not always look the way people expect. She reminds us that the people who hold space for everyone else are human too, and that the emotional weight of this work is real, even when it goes unspoken. This episode invites us to think about care differently. Sometimes it is safety planning and court support. Sometimes it is accepting your own humanity, naming your own limits, and imagining the structures we have never built, like an anonymous national helpline where social workers in crisis could finally turn to someone without shame. Mabel leaves listeners with a grounding reminder for the next century of social work: accept your own pace, be honest with yourself, and remember that no one is perfect. Every experience, good or bad, is a single dot in a larger drawing, and one day you will step back, see the whole picture, and find your true resilience and power. Above all, she hopes the profession never loses its humanity, that in an age of rapid technology, we hold onto the heart-to-heart, human-to-human connection that makes this work irreplaceable.

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  Episode #9

  The Social Worker Interview with Alisha Stubbs

  Jul 9, 202631 minS1

  In this episode of The Social Worker Podcast , we speak with Alisha Stubbs as part of CASW’s special series celebrating 100 years of social work in Canada. Alisha’s journey began with a simple but powerful curiosity: why are people’s struggles so often treated as individual, when they are shaped by systems, relationships, access, and opportunity? That question has followed her across developmental services, adult protective services, education, nonprofit leadership, municipal politics, research, and early years advocacy. It has also deepened through her lived experience as a parent navigating autism diagnosis, school systems, funding, advocacy, documentation, and the emotional labour families are often expected to carry alone. Throughout the conversation, Alisha reflects on what it means to practice social work in the tension between policy and ethics, compliance and care, bureaucracy and humanity. She reminds us that systems are not always built with dignity, accessibility, or neuroaffirming practice in mind, but social workers can still move through them with intention, curiosity, and relational accountability. This episode invites us to think about advocacy differently. Sometimes it is public and visible. Sometimes it is quiet, behind-the-scenes work: changing one policy, shifting one conversation, supporting one family, or asking where flexibility might exist inside a system that feels rigid. Alisha leaves listeners with a grounding reminder for the next century of social work: find your people, find your peace, protect what sustains you, and never stop learning.

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