Abigail Lash-Ballew (she/her)
I am a PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto and a Registered Social Worker in Ontario seeking to advance anti-racist macro social work practice through research, education, and community engagement. My doctoral research explores how social work practicum students within child welfare settings experience and navigate their professional socialization in relation to institutional racism. Guided by commitments to justice, prevention, and systemic transformation, my scholarship and practice aim to reimagine social work education and field practicums as pathways toward equity, liberation, and better outcomes for children and families.
Mission
As a macro social worker, educator, and researcher, my mission is to advance anti-racist macro social work with organizations and communities through transformative research and education. I seek to reimagine social work education and field practicums as sites of critical inquiry and collective action—spaces where students are professionally socialized as relational, anti-racist, critically engaged practitioners who challenge systemic inequities and work toward structural transformation and social problem prevention, beyond intervention. In collaboration with student bodies and communities, I aim to bridge scholarship and practice to foster system-level change in child welfare and beyond.
Vision
I envision a social work profession that embraces macro practice as central to justice, equity, and social transformation. In this vision, social work education, research, and community engagement are deeply intertwined in dismantling racism within our institutions and advancing collective well-being. I aspire to help cultivate a generation of social workers who are systems thinkers, organizers, educators, and policy leaders, becoming professionals who center anti-racism, prevention, and community collaboration in all aspects of their practice to build a more just and caring world for children, families, and communities.