From Clinical Insight to Collective Action: Advancing Mental Health Equity

As a clinical social worker and educator with more than 21 years of experience, I have witnessed how clients' mental health is influenced by the systems they must navigate. Access to treatment, school responses, workplace conditions, financial resources, and experiences of discrimination can significantly affect a person's well-being. These experiences have strengthened my commitment to preparing social work students to respond both clinically and systemically.

I am interested in this program because I want students to move from understanding social problems to developing the skills and confidence to influence change. The opportunity for students to choose, develop, and launch their own campaigns is particularly compelling. It creates space for student ownership, shared leadership, and direct engagement with the realities of advocacy.

I have not previously taught a social action course, and I would value the structure, mentorship, and practical tools this program offers. I want to learn how to guide campaigns that are feasible within a semester, build reciprocal community relationships, assess experiential learning, and support students through uncertainty, disagreement, and setbacks. My goal is to develop a course that strengthens students' professional identities and helps them see social action as an integral part of ethical social work practice.

This experiential social work course examines how social action can address the policies, institutional practices, and systemic inequities that shape mental health and access to care. Students will connect social work's commitment to social justice with practical skills in community engagement, advocacy, power analysis, coalition building, and campaign development.

During the semester, students will develop and launch a social action campaign focused on an issue they select. Working collaboratively and engaging people affected by the issue, students will investigate a concern, identify decision-makers with the authority to make a change, establish a specific and achievable demand, and implement strategies to advance that demand. Campaign topics may include barriers to mental health services, inequitable school practices, workforce well-being, or other community concerns.

Structured reflection will help students examine positionality, ethical responsibilities, cultural humility, and the relationship between individual experiences and systemic conditions. Students will evaluate their work through campaign milestones, community feedback, and evidence of progress, recognizing that meaningful learning can occur even when the desired change is not fully achieved within the semester.

Kenyuatia Gash

Clinical Instructor

College of Social Work and Criminal Justice

University of Kentucky