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Reimagining Assessment in Social Work

Reimagining Assessment in Social Work

Critical Approaches to Power, Culture, and Practice

edited by Peter Choate, Christina Tortorelli and Jennifer Hedges foreword by Terri Pelton

Social work assessment is political. How we understand its power is at the heart of ethical social work practice.

About the book

Assessment is everywhere in social work. Done well, assessment advances the social worker's understanding of clients’ contexts and creates pathways for supporting their lives. Done poorly, colonialism and power take over the story, sustaining marginalization, disempowerment, and damaging outcomes.

This book considers the many ways assessment carries power, from the way information is reported, collected, and acted upon through to the clients’ interactions with adjacent systems and institutions. Authors in this volume tackle the troubled history of racist and Eurocentric assessment and engage critically with issues of colonialism, assumptions about the meaning of family, anti-Black racism, disability and neurodivergence, migration and citizenship, restorative justice and aging out of care. Focusing on pragmatic skills rooted in theory and connected to major social issues, this collection is an indispensable resource for social work students and practitioners learning to ground assessment in relational collaboration, reflexivity, and critical thinking.

With contributions from: Dorothy Badry, Natalie Beltrano, Susan Burke, Victor Chikadzi, Peter Choate, Nancy Flatters, Jennifer Hedges, Leona Huntinghawk, Ashlee Homewood, Julie Mann-Johnson, Tammy Pearson, Desi Shebobman, Christina Tortorelli, Carol Wade and Ajwang' Warria.

Family Studies Indigenous Resistance & Decolonization Social Work

What people are saying

Donna Baines, Professor, UBC, editor of Doing Anti-Oppressive Practice: Rethinking Theory and Practice
“A much-needed critical, decolonial, and anti-oppressive lens to the practice of assessment in child welfare. This very clear and compelling text should be required reading for all social work practitioners who long to advance social justice enacted within child welfare and allied fields.”

Kathleen E. Absolon (Minogiizhigokwe), author of Kaandossiwin: How We Come to Know Indigenous re-Search Methodologies
“A great resource! This book is a very timely offering of rethinking social work assessments that are ethically responsible and culturally aligned with values of social and structural justice.”

Don Fuchs, Faculty of Social Work, University of Manitoba
“A groundbreaking and deeply reflective contribution to the field of social work practice in child welfare, Reimagining Assessment in Social Work serves as an essential guide for moving beyond bureaucratic compliance toward a practice rooted in social justice and genuine human connection. By centering assessment as a curiosity-driven partnership, the authors challenge policymakers, practitioners, and students alike to resist colonial harms and standardized surveillance in favour of ethically accountable, culturally grounded, social justice-oriented practice with children and families.”

Ian Hyslop, University of Auckland, New Zealand
“From a variety of perspectives, contributors interrogate this fraught area of practice – how and why are assessments made and which voices are overtly and covertly privileged in the process? This book destabilizes narrative assumptions and invites students and teachers of social work to grapple with questions vitally important if child welfare work is to develop its social justice aspirations.”

W. Ben Gibbard, Alberta Children’s Hospital and University of Calgary Cumming School of Medicine
“This book expands the scope of assessment from safety and risk to encompass strengths and contextual supports identified through relational collaboration with families that promotes the resiliency of children, families, communities, and cultures. A timely and important book that challenges the reader to reconsider child welfare assessment from the perspective of the child and family.”

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Authors

Peter Choate

Peter Choate is a professor of social work at Mount Royal University, where he specializes in assessment practices, child and adolescent mental health, and simulation-based learning. He has played a leading role in developing simulation methods for social work education, including interdisciplinary applications and child intervention scenarios featuring mock court proceedings with members of the judiciary.

Choate has been qualified as an expert witness in social work in more than 150 legal proceedings, with subspecialties in parenting capacity (including assessments related to risk, domestic violence, and addiction), fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), and cross-cultural evaluations. He served as an expert panel member for the national study Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder in Canada: Current Knowledge and Policy, Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (2025).

Recognized as Canada’s leading author in the field of parenting capacity assessments within the child welfare system, Choate’s research focuses on how systemic structures — including child protection, justice, health, and addiction services — reproduce historical and contemporary biases. His work critically examines how these systems obstruct anti-oppressive and culturally responsive practices in social work.

Christina Tortorelli

Christina Tortorelli is an associate professor and academic director for Social Work at Mount Royal University. Bringing expertise in child welfare practice and research, complex trauma, child development and disabilities, she actively works to enhance the student learning experience. Utilizing engaging and innovative pedagogies that centre experiential learning, high-impact teaching practices such as simulation and strong community connections to practice are of primary importance. Her partnerships across sectors are well established, showing students that collaboration and connection are critical components of social work practice. Connecting theory to practice while incorporating current research and trends into the learning space develops social workers who are ready to practise and have the longevity required to carry out a diverse and meaningful career. This work builds upon a scholarly record of contributing meaningfully to the ongoing challenges inherent in child welfare practice. Through this platform, Tortorelli offers commentary on practice adaptations, policy and regulation adjustments and guides post-secondary social work educators to contemplate our role in the evolution of improved social work engagement and practice in support of communities.

Jennifer Hedges

Jennifer Hedges is an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba Faculty of Social Work Inner City Social Work Program. She worked in the Ontario child welfare system for many years before entering academia full-time. Her research examines how transformative learning experiences can prepare students for working in child welfare and addressing systemic challenges in this system. Hedges is committed to transformative education that is relational and rooted in critical and feminist pedagogies. Current research interests involve exploring moral courage in social work and allyship in child welfare. She is also engaged in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning research, examining curriculum and learning through reading. She is the co-chair of the Prairie Child Welfare Consortium and co-chair of the International Association of Schools of Social Work Research Committee.

Terri Pelton

Terri Pelton holds a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Regina and completed the Senior and Executive Management Development Program for the Alberta Public Service. Terri was appointed as Alberta’s Child and Youth Advocate in 2022. Terri has worked in the social services sector for over 30 years, helping to create positive outcomes for young people, their families, and their communities. At the beginning of her career, Terri served as a frontline child protection worker and supervisor, and later worked for the Ministry of Children’s Services as an analyst. Through these early experiences, she saw firsthand the challenges young people in government systems encounter and became a strong advocate for meaningful change.

Chapter 1: Assessment Is the Noun, Critical Thinking Is the Verb (Peter Choate, Christina Tortorelli, and Jennifer Hedges)
Chapter 2: The Paradox of Assessment in Child Welfare Practice (Christina Tortorelli)
Chapter 3: Bringing an Indigenous Lens to Assessment: The Example of Ani to Pisi (Roy Bear Chief and Peter Choate)
Chapter 4: The Space Between Abolition and Now: Assessment in Child Welfare (Jennifer Hedges)
Chapter 5: Indigenous Fathers: The Missing Voice in Child Welfare Assessment (Leona Huntinghawk)
Chapter 6: House Hunting: Caregiver Assessment and Home Study Practice (Julie Mann-Johnson)
Chapter 7: Wisdom from Families: Indigenous Kinship Caregivers’ Experiences with Home Approval Process (Susan Burke)
Chapter 8: Deconstructing White Supremacy in Safety and Risk Assessments: Applying Critical Race Feminist Theory and Intersectionality as an Analytical Strategy for Transformation in Child Welfare (Natalie Beltrano and Carol Wade)
Chapter 9: Critical Assessment with Black Immigrant and Newcomer Children: Lessons for Social Work and Social Service Practitioners in Canada (Ajwang Warria and Victor Chikadzi)
Chapter 10: Practice Considerations for Parent Understanding (Tammy Pearson)
Chapter 11: Social Work Ethics, Neurodiversity, Disability and Child Protection (Dorothy Badry and Yahya El-Lahib)
Chapter 12: Assessment Goes to Court (Peter Choate)
Chapter 13: An Overview of Restorative Justice and Career Inclusion (Nancy Flatters and D. Lindstrom)
Chapter 14: Transitioning to Adulthood from Being in Care – A Lonely Journey (Ashlee Homewood and Christina Tortorelli)