Kia kūtoro mai | Get involved

The vision for our advocacy mahi at ANZASW is to advance social justice, human rights and human dignity for all in Aotearoa New Zealand and uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

We do this in many ways in the policy advocacy space:

  • Supporting social workers
  • Promoting the social work profession
  • Influencing public policy
  • Partnering and collaborating


Our Social Justice Engagement Strategy details how we aim to achieve this, and our organisational priorities for action.

Social Justice Engagement Strategy

Our advocacy mahi at ANZASW is informed by Ngā Tikanga Matatika, our Code of Ethics which represents how we envisage social work in Aotearoa New Zealand now and into the future.

Personal views of our membership vary widely across the political, cultural and spiritual spectrums, and we recognise and value this diversity. However, the collective views of ANZASW are strongly anchored in Ngā Tikanga Matatika and our organisation’s constitution rather than attempting to be representative of individual members’ views.

Within our constitution, members’ commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi is not optional but permeates everything we do. We recognise that Aotearoa is the tūrangawaewae of Tangata Whenua, and through Te Tiriti o Waitangi a governance relationship was formed between Tangata Whenua and the British Crown. Our government continues to fall short of honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi, a common feature of multiple successive governments over many decades, no matter their political orientation.

Our advocacy mahi commonly speaks to this disconnect and the need to support Tangata Whenua aspirations for tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake as Te Tiriti o Waitangi intended.

We will not condone, endorse nor engage with views which seek to minimise the mana and rights of Tangata Whenua and the central place of Te Tiriti o Waitangi as an enduring agreement.

Promoting such views as social workers, we argue, is contrary to SWRB core competence standards. We encourage all social workers to critically reflect on alignment with these standards when engaging in advocacy mahi.

Our priorities are:
  • Student hardship
  • Social Work Supervision
  • Environmental sustainability and achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals
  • Social Worker wellbeing, workload, pay parity and equity


Below you will be able to find details of opportunities to get involved in this work as they arise. 

Read our monthly Get Involved newletters to see the details of the current opportunities:

 


We may be making submissions and encourage you to get involved with our submission development process or to make your own submission.