Leveraging Multisolving to Impact Social Work Education and Advance Human Rights

Overview: By exploring case studies, this session introduces multisolving, multifaceted solutions designed to advance environmental justice by multiplying the impact of resource investments. Participants will explore intersections with the Environmental Justice Curricular Guide and NASW Code of Ethics to broaden the scope of their social work teaching and practice.Proposal text: Humanity is facing multiple crises converging at once with grave impacts on all aspects of society. As UN Secretary Guterres aptly stated (2020), "like the coronavirus, greenhouse gases respect no boundaries.” ​​Situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic highlight the impact of environmental injustice, in the form of air pollution, on marginalized populations who have experienced higher rates of severe illness and death (Brandt, 2020). Interestingly, many of these current impacts mirror the potential implications of the climate crisis.
Social workers can learn to advance the goals embedded in the AASWSW Grand Challenges through environmentally just multisolving solutions (Swain et al., 2018). Social work education can highlight the importance of drawing connections between the advancement of racial equity by multisolving to advance positive environmental measures and multiply community benefits. Multisolving offers a new approach that responds to limited global resources from the Covid-19 pandemic and the accelerating pace and impact of the climate crisis to advance meaningful and equitable solutions (Breeze Ceballos, & Sawin, 2021). The multifaceted intervention will create ripple effects of climate mitigation and protection throughout the 707,400 social workers in the United States by reprioritizing environmental justice in scholarship and practice at the gatekeeper and practitioner levels simultaneously (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019).
Multisolving approaches are well-aligned with the NASW Code of Ethics because they center on social justice and needs that mirror each level of practice. Employing multisolving to meet social work aims is a prudent, resourceful approach to advance social workers’ resource demands, including time, by addressing multiple needs simultaneously. Multisolving offers a unique and readily implementable framework that promotes policies to support the climate while also meeting other needs, including improved health outcomes, economic benefits, and access to healthy food and potable water.
Social workers can market their new skills in a rapidly changing world, where situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic highlight the impact of environmental injustice, for example, in the form of air pollution and on marginalized populations who experienced higher rates of severe illness and death (Vlachopoulos, 2020). Social work must utilize its deep and historical skill set and ethical commitments to shape policy and offer substantial solutions to the most resonating and complex challenge of modern time. As a discipline, social work can address the unique needs of individuals and communities, especially the most marginalized and often the most affected, through effective planning and preparation, rather than engaging with climate change only through post-disaster responses (Hayes et al., 2018). This presentation/workshop will explore case studies to demonstrate the alignment of multisolving to the NASW Code of Ethics and offer connections to the CSWE Environmental Justice Curricular Guide. Participants can use these case studies to expand the scope of their social work teaching and practice in social work to more readily incorporate solutions to social and environmental justice concerns.