2025 Articles

Storytelling for Social Change: Using Emerging Technology to Develop Antioppressive Social Work Training and Practice

Eschmann, Robert D.; Pousman, Barry; Belkin-Martinez, Dawn; Reeder, Kelsey; Toraif, Noor; Stevenson, Maya

Social justice is a value central to the social work profession and paramount for scholars and practitioners invested in public behavioral health. How can social workers and behavioral health researchers and practitioners approach practice, often dealing with personal and individual-level issues, while maintaining a systemic antioppressive and social justice-oriented focus? In this article, we present a model for leveraging emerging technologies to engage behavioral health practitioners and researchers in antioppressive behavioral health practices and generate technology-based training modules. We explore an experimental course taught at a school of social work that engaged participatory design methodologies to (a) introduce students to an antioppressive social work practice model centering institutional, cultural, and societal barriers to wellness (including racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and ageism), (b) explore immersive storytelling for social impact and the costs and affordances of emerging technologies, and (c) empower students to design and create their own virtual reality experiences.