Jackie Barkley fonds

Jackie Barkley was a social worker in Halifax who practiced, taught and wrote in areas such as child welfare, mental health, and adolescent counseling. She started out as a community organizer in the North End of Halifax, and assisted in the development of anti-poverty programs, welfare rights and tenants organizations.Ms. Barkley was an active member in many social justice organizations, most prominently:

• the Metro Coalition for a Non Racist Society - an advocacy group of African Nova Scotian, Aboriginal and new Canadian communities who gave presentations on racism and white privilege, and published the book "Racism: Whose Problem?";

• Nova Scotia Coalition Against the KKK, a grassroots multi-ethnic group that sprang up in the early 1980s to confront the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in Canada;

• the Social Policy Review Committee which was an umbrella group of Nova Scotia social workers, advocacy groups, labour and consumer groups;

• the Municipal Action Committee which was active in the 1991 municipal elections promoting public participation and social justice issues.

  As a parent and resident of the North End, Barkley was also very involved with St. Joseph's A. McKay elementary school.

Her publications include chapters in Power and Resistance: Critical Thinking About Canadian Social Issues , Daily Meaning: Counternarratives of Teachers’ Work , and a commentary in the November 2009 issue of the “Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry”.