Skip to main content
CSWE Annual Conference 2025 Main banner

Connect Session (Commissions and Councils ONLY)

Navigating environmental degradation: Access, relationships, community resilience, and attunement

This interactive panel explores how environmental degradation and “natural” disasters disproportionately harm marginalized communities, including persons with disabilities. An intersectional approach, incorporating tenets of disability justice and environmental justice, suggests communities can build inclusive responses based on principles of community care, mutual aid, and attunement between people and the planet.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this session, attendees should be able to:
  1. Participants will examine how systemic inequalities, including ableism, racism, and economic disparities, exacerbate the vulnerability of individuals with disabilities during disasters, using Hurricanes Katrina, Maria, Helene, and the LA wildfires as examples.
  2. Participants will learn how disability justice principles—such as intersectionality, interdependence, and collective access—can inform inclusive disaster preparedness, response and recovery efforts, fostering collective liberation and resilience.
  3. Participants will discuss how attunement with the natural world and centering disability joy can support healing, resilience, and justice in the context of climate crises and social work interventions.