"Establishing the Aboriginal Social Work Associations: Sharing the Manitoba experience"

Abstract

The impetus for this article arose out of a dialogue with several like-minded people while attending an Aboriginal social work conference in Sudbury in January of 2003. Our discussion revolved around the establishment of a national Aboriginal social work association. During the discussion the people were informed of the ongoing process in Manitoba to establish an Aboriginal social work association, namely the Aboriginal Professional Helpers Society, Inc. What follows is a description of that process beginning with background/history of our association, the identification of a number of challenges we experienced or could potentially experience, the benefits and potentials we see for Aboriginal social work associations, and a number of recommendations to support the development of these associations.