griffin teaches full-time in the Social Service Worker program at George Brown College (GBC), and works part-time in GBC's Teaching and Learning Exchange, supporting other educators in community-oriented pedagogical practice with an emphasis on online teaching. They have a background in radical mental health and harm reduction grounded in their own living experience of Madness and in solidarity with people organizing for liberatory harm reduction and against criminalized drug use. They have a long history of community organizing and are a member of several iniatives for disability justice and a free Palestine. They are especially interested in interdependence and collective care, and aspire to teach from an anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, anti-racist, abolitionist lens, to the degree this is possible within (and outside) institutions. griffin holds an MA and PhD from the OISE/ University of Toronto.
SPW is a community-driven research and advocacy project that supports the disruptive and transformative practices of people doign care and support work within their own communities and intervenes on the problematic ways that social service agencies exploit workers with lived/living expertise. The research was completed in partnership with Working for Change and the Toronto Drop-In Network, and guided by a brilliant committee of community experts, including Michael Nurse, Maria Scotton, Suwaida Farah, Andre Hermanstyne, Lindsay Jennings and Madelyn Gold with support from Dawnmarie Harriott and Julia Walter. Project website.
EPSW was a community-engaged research project steered by Amita Agrawal, Sarah Alvo, Deshawna Dookie, griffin epstein, Kate Klein and Lo Goldsmith designed to support educators in integrating meaningful curriculum on the importance of social service work grounded in and emerging from lived/living experience, against oppressive social work structures. The resulting toolkit/online resource is available at https://www.griffinepstein.com/epsw.
Creating Change is a strategic planning document that synthesizes qualitative research undertaken at the Parkdale Activity-Recreation Centre co-written by Tyde Irma Cambridge, Peter G. Martin, Bernice Sampson, John Hovannisyan, Omid Zareian, Bernadette Timson and Hume Cronyn. Guided by a group of community stakeholders, this research investigated the relationship between gentrification, colonial violence, white supremacy, and social work.
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