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Social work education integrates theory and practice to bridge the micro-macro divide. The theoretical framework of intersecting identities reveals hidden inequities related to health consequences. The global pandemic, reflecting a colliding of personal and professional worlds, interrupted an elective social work course designed to: 1) develop transformative potential (i.e., critical consciousness of and critical action against white supremacy, anti-blackness, and racial oppression of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC)); 2) model liberation-based social work education and practice; and 3) prepare students to be critical social workers in the field. The pandemic created an in-class opportunity for the professor, also the course's designer, to practice what she teaches. This self-reflexive essay details the pandemic's impact on a teaching experience and follows the professor's journey to more fully understand systems, inequity, and her own transformative potential. The transformative potential development process included many learning experiences in the areas of relationship and community building; transformative consciousness development; accountability and responsibility; efficacy; and, critical action. The unforeseen global pandemic presented the professor with opportunities for deep reflection about liberation-based social work education and practice. By bringing the reality of how macro processes create micro consequences into the classroom in real time, the professor's responses were tested against oppressive norms, standards and values versus those that honor a person's humanity. An important discovery is that a critical social work educator teaches in ways that spark radical imagination to disrupt the oppressive status quo camouflaged as personal choice and business as usual.

The institution of slavery engineered racialized gendered capitalism that locks Black women in multiple social identity-labeled boxes on the sociocultural and economic hierarchy. Acts of cultural invasion have produced controlling images and oppressive narratives to maintain the status quo of white male wealth and power. Critical race theory scholars have offered counter-storytelling as a theorizing method to study the impact of intersectional oppression on Black women and to develop strategies for resistance and healing for those who are at the margins of society. This manuscript weaves the voices of Black feminists with a creative arts methodology to explore resistance and healing practice rooted in lived experience and provides a case example of counter-storytelling in a predominantly white academic space. For future directions, there is a need for guidelines on how to navigate the use of counter-storytelling to safely engage and protect the Black woman's humanity and not be a tool for public displays of Black pain or for trauma voyeurism.

The field of social work has a professional and ethical commitment to social justice. However, scholars have identified potential dangers that may threaten that commitment. To transform dangers into opportunities that strengthen social justice service, schools of social work could incorporate critical pedagogy within the Master of Social Work (MSW) curriculum. By training future social workers in critical social work practice, social work education becomes an advocate for marginalized populations. If not educated from an anti-oppressive framework, social workers have the potential to harm, oppress, and control rather than support and serve. The weight of this responsibility and firsthand social work education experiences led to the development and implementation of an elective course in critical social work informed by the Critical Transformative Potential Development (CTPD) Framework. The course follows a method that puts the CTPD theory into practice to bridge the micro-macro divide by engaging students in actively dismantling ideologies and practices of dominance. The course aims to produce anti-oppressive social workers who can better navigate social justice terrain. A student's perspective on the course highlights strengths and areas for improvement. Future iterations of this class or similar courses of study could be adapted by and adopted for other social work education institutions. Because social work education is fertile ground to plant seeds that will grow social workers rooted in anti-racism and anti-White supremacy, there is the opportunity, with a radical education, to transform the field in a critical direction, better prepared to overcome the social justice challenges of the era.

This paper outlines the development of the Transformative Consciousness (TC) of Oppression and Privilege (COAP) Scale created to address the conceptual and measurement limitations of the critical consciousness (CC) construct. Unlike prior CC measures, this scale was developed for the general population, integrates identities that are oppressed and privileged, incorporates the social-ecological framework, assesses cognitions, and attempts to reduce the impact of social desirability bias. Following DeVellis' (2003) scale development process and Rubio and colleague's (2003) process for content validity, this paper presents: a review of CC measurement literature and the lack of standardized conceptualization and measurement tools; an overview of TC theory; the COAP scale development process; and, a content validity study of COAP including quantitative and qualitative methods. An outgrowth of the first author's conceptualization of Transformative Consciousness, the domain-specific and content validated COAP scale demonstrates a unique scaling method combining vignettes, sentence completions, rank ordering of response options, and scoring of ordering patterns. Limitations of the COAP scale and opportunities for future research are discussed.

Significant previous research has focused on how individuals experience stigma when interacting with the public sphere and service agencies; the purpose of this grounded theory study is to explore how formerly incarcerated mothers with histories of substance use experience stigmas from their intimate relationships with family and romantic partners. Using an intersectionality lens, this study reveals that the women perceived multiple stigmas due to their previous substance use, incarceration, and other addiction-related behaviors that challenged their roles as mothers and romantic partners. Compounding the behavioral-related stigmas were race and class-based stereotypes of black criminality that also challenged women's ability to embody key motherhood and womanhood roles. As a result, the women employed resistance strategies to safeguard against stigma and preserve their recovery. The implications for practice underscore the significance of addressing personal experiences of stigma, complex relational dynamics, and understanding the needs of support systems that are also shaped by the women's cycles of incarceration and illness.