A better view from Black perspectives

By Devon Dams-O'Connor

A new UB elective called Social Work in the Black Community provides students with an understanding of the social challenges facing the Black community and strategies to help overcome these challenges. 

The course is taught by Noelle M. St. Vil and Christopher St. Vil, associate professors in the UB School of Social Work and a husband-and-wife pair, who have co-authored work on Black trauma but had never co-taught a class before. That changed when colleagues approached the St. Vils about developing a course that focused on Black perspectives, something that needed more representation in the school’s curriculum.

“The school is moving towards racial justice as a core component of what we want to address strategically,” explains Noelle. “Those conversations are what led to the development of this course and recognizing the need for it.”

The St. Vils, who say they benefited from being taught a Black perspective framework at the historically Black Howard University School of Social Work, wanted the same experience for their students and ran with the idea. They developed novel content and intentionally chose — in collaboration with Associate Professor Kelly Patterson — to hold the class at Belmont Housing Resources for WNY on Buffalo’s East Side to add context to the syllabus.

“Many of our students have never been on the East Side,” says Chris. “These are communities that are experiencing violence and poverty — the communities we talk about in class.”

Another distinctive facet of the inaugural class was its size. With only five students representing different backgrounds, intimate discussions invited participants to ask honest questions, challenge assumptions, share life experiences and learn from one another. Dialogue was often so intense it ran well over the class’s three-hour time slot.

The topics covered were deep. Central was the role of public policy and the legal system in marginalizing and disadvantaging people of color over time, contributing to persistent gaps in access to wealth, education, health care, food and housing. Readings and discussions also delved into mental health, substance use, family and relationships, immigration and child welfare.

“We really focused on providing the contextual narrative to the numbers,” summarizes Noelle St. Vil. “These statistics don’t exist in a vacuum; there's a system behind the numbers and why Black people are disproportionately represented in almost every category.”

Vanity Jones, MSW ’24, who is pursuing her PhD with research focused on Black women and youth in healthy relationships, was especially surprised by the unit that discussed Black fatherhood.

“I didn’t realize Black men aren’t given as many resources to be good fathers, and the roots of that are in slavery when men weren’t given space in their family’s lives,” she explains. “But at the same time, the research shows that Black men are more involved in their children’s lives than the media and culture portray.”

Social work professionals from organizations working in Black communities in education, fatherhood, violence, health care and housing visited the class as guest speakers. Their stories and discussions provided real-world context and introduced students to community resources.  

Students from various racial backgrounds enrolled in the class, including Black students from Rwanda, Nigeria and the United States, whose discussions illustrated better than any textbook just how different the Black immigrant experience and the Black American experience can be — a central lesson of the class and an important reminder for social workers doing work in communities of color. 

“Blackness is not monolithic,” says Chris St. Vil. “It’s all these different experiences and cultural values. What do we need to think about as social workers when we look at statistics and they’re bunching up people as Black or African American? It’s not all-encompassing.”

That notion hit home with Claudine Karambizi, MSW ’24, a Rwandan who was born on the Ivory Coast and came to the U.S. when she was 5 years old.

“I grew up with African Americans more than Africans,” she explains. “So I wanted to see how the class addressed all the different kinds of Black. I never had a class that was willing to go in depth into all this stuff.”

As the Scholar Success Program manager at Buffalo Prep, Karambizi is already applying what she learned in this class to her work with students.

“I can relate to them as a student of color who entered a predominantly white school like I did, but now I have this education that allows me to incorporate a cultural understanding to their broader needs, strengthening them and their community,” she explains.

The course’s subject matter reaches beyond the social work profession, too. Joyce Adeola Jekayinoluwa is a PhD student in global gender and sexuality studies whose research focuses on gender-based violence against Black women. A recent arrival from Nigeria, she was surprised at how the Black experience in America differs from what the rest of the world sees on the news.

“I thought the U.S. was into family, but then learning about the policies and laws to take kids away from families was shocking,” says Jekayinoluwa. “Also, Black grandparents as caregivers in the U.S. — I didn’t think that happened here to the extent that they get social services to support it.”

She says this class made her want to be more attuned in her professional work and will help her better understand the trauma and loss she hears in conversations with victims of gender-based violence. It’s a perspective she thinks anyone working to earn the trust of Black people should learn, regardless of race or profession.

“This class isn’t meant for just Black people,” says Karambizi. “Everyone should be seeking the truth in this class — social work has a deep history that has harmed people in this community in the past, and by knowing it, we’ll provide the help people need from us.”

Social Work in the Black Community will be offered as a spring 2025 elective with a new location and roster of guest speakers to vary the experience.