Abstract
Neuroscience offers language and evidence that can strengthen interdisciplinary communication, support advocacy in biomedically dominated settings, and validate relational practices long recognized in social work, including the impacts of early adversity, attachment, and healing through connection. At the same time, an epistemological tension underlies the profession’s unease with neuroscience when brain-based narratives are used to individualize structural harm or justify surveillance of marginalized families and communities. This teaching note introduces Neuro Social Work as a justice-oriented specialization that integrates contemporary neuroscience with social work’s person-in-environment commitments, relational practice traditions, and anti-oppressive ethics.The author argues that the key question is no longer whether social work will engage neuroscience, but how and on whose terms. Neuro Social Work is proposed as a both/and project: it develops advanced, critically informed neuroscience literacy while resisting reductionism, medicalization, and neuronormative assumptions. The framework emphasizes that biology and environment are inseparable, drawing on epigenetics and neuroplasticity to show how social conditions shape neurobiology and how change remains possible across the lifespan. It also centers neurodiversity and disability justice perspectives and affirms community, Indigenous, and lived-experience knowledges as essential evidence alongside neuroimaging. Additionally, the author calls for educational pathways, accessible professional development, and interdisciplinary research partnerships that position social workers to ethically translate brain-based knowledge in practice, research, and policy.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Fall 11-18-2025
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17635861
Repository Citation
Llamosa, Priscila, "Introducing neuro social work: A brief reflection on neuroscience and the profession" (2025). Social Work Faculty Publications. 21.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/csw_facpub/21
Included in
Adult and Continuing Education Commons, Disability and Equity in Education Commons, Disability Studies Commons, Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons, Social Justice Commons, Social Work Commons
Notes/Citation Information
Llamosa, P. (2025). Introducing Neuro Social Work: A brief reflection on neuroscience and the profession. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17635861