Global spot for sexual and gender rights champion
massey-university
Mon Dec 14 2015 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)
Global spot for sexual and gender rights champion
Monday, 14 December 2015, 4:14 pm
Press Release: Massey University
Global spot for sexual and gender rights champion
An outspoken academic for the rights of sexual and gender minorities will be the first New Zealand social work scholar to deliver the prestigious Eileen Younghusband Memorial Lecture at the 2016 World Social Work Conference in Korea.
Associate Professor Mark Henrickson was selected for the award ahead of professors from the University of Mumbai, India; Brigham Young University, United States; and the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. More than 50 per cent of the votes from the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) Board of Directors were in favour of Dr Henrickson.
He was surprised to be chosen to speak in Seoul next June. “I let my nomination go forward because, as far as I am aware, there’s never been an openly gay person nominated or awarded the lecture, so it’s a real opportunity for me to present some of the issues international social work is having to deal with in respect of sexual and gender minorities around the world.
“In New Zealand, we are pretty far advanced, but in Uganda they are arresting people. In Saudi they are killing people. In Iran they are doing involuntary gender transformation to ‘fix’ people. So there are some tremendously important issues in the international arena, and this is an opportunity to raise some of those key issues.”
Dr Henrickson wants to use his chance to speak to challenge the language used around sexual and gender minorities. “The traditional ‘binary’ language of male/female, gay/straight, masculine/feminine is very old fashioned, and clearly outdated. Social work has got to learn how to address some of these issues in the 21st century.”
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Head of the School of Social Work, Associate Professor Kieran O’Donoghue, congratulated Dr Henrickson on his achievement. “This opportunity is true recognition of the esteem in which Mark’s work is held internationally. It is also a great honour for Massey University and social work education in New Zealand.”
The Eileen Younghusband Award Memorial Lecture is the most prestigious international lecture for social work educators. It was established to commemorate Eileen Younghusband, an IASSW President from 1961 to 1968 who died in a car accident while on a lecture tour in the United States.
Bio: Dr Mark Henrickson worked for many years in HIV-related health and mental health care and management, both in the US and New Zealand, before joining Massey University. He has published on HIV prevention, care delivery, and programme design and evaluation, and recently co-edited Local Tools for Global Change, a book consisting of HIV research by PhD students from Auckland institutions and published by Massey University Press. He was the lead investigator on AfricaNZ Health, a collaborative study with the University of Otago and African new settler communities in New Zealand that seeks to advise the Ministry of Health on HIV-related prevention and health promotion in African migrant and refugee communities in New Zealand. He plays an active role in international social work education, and participates on editorial boards and reviews for research journals.
For more information on the 2016 World Social Work Conference: http://www.swsd2016.org/
ENDS
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