Disability Justice Cross-Cutting Group for the Social Work Grand Challenges Futures Project

​

Drawing on Sins Invalid's 10 principles of Disability Justice—intersectionality, leadership of those most impacted, anti-capitalist politic, commitment to cross-movement organizing, recognizing wholeness, sustainability, commitment to cross-disability solidarity, interdependence, collective access, and collective liberation—a cross-cutting working group within the GC Futures project offers essential guidance for reimagining social work's future through a Disability Justice lens (Berne et al., 2018). This group will bring together disabled scholars, practitioners, and community members across all twelve Grand Challenge networks to ensure that futures thinking itself becomes accessible, intersectional, and rooted in the lived experiences of those most impacted by ableism and its intersections with racism, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy (Sins Invalid, 2015). By centering Disability Justice principles, this cross-cutting group will challenge the Grand Challenges community to examine how ableism shapes current social work research and practice, while co-creating more liberatory futures that recognize disabled people as whole, valuable human beings outside of capitalist notions of productivity (Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2018).

​

The Disability Justice cross-cutting group will operate in accordance with principles of interdependence and collective access, ensuring that all foresight activities—from planning sessions to implementation—are designed with flexibility, multiple modes of participation, and consideration for the fluctuating capacities of participants. This commitment to sustainability means pacing the work collectively to support long-term engagement rather than replicating urgency-driven practices that harm disabled communities (Berne et al., 2018). The group will facilitate cross-movement solidarity by helping each Grand Challenge network understand how disability intersects with their specific focus area—whether homelessness, youth development, environmental justice, or health equity—while building coalitions that recognize liberation as inherently interconnected (Sins Invalid, 2015). Through this cross-cutting lens, the Futures project can model anticipatory social work that truly honors the wisdom of disabled communities and creates pathways toward collective liberation (Wong, 2020).

 

References

Berne, P., Morales, A. L., Langstaff, D., & Sins Invalid. (2018). Ten principles of Disability Justice. WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly, 46(1 & 2), 227–230. https://doi.org/10.1353/wsq.2018.0003

Piepzna-Samarasinha, L. L. (2018). Care work: Dreaming disability justice. Arsenal Pulp Press.

Sins Invalid. (2015). 10 principles of Disability Justice. https://www.sinsinvalid.org/blog/10-principles-of-disability-justice

Wong, A. (2020). Disability visibility: First-person stories from the twenty-first century. Vintage Books.