Volume 51, Issue 5, July 2021

In many parts of the world, social workers are often engaged in disaster responses. In Aotearoa New Zealand however social work is not generally considered an essential component of disaster management. This is surprising as both social work and disaster management are focused on the development of safer, less vulnerable communities. This article reports the results of the first known survey of registered social workers in Aotearoa New Zealand and their involvement in disaster events. Additionally, the article highlights the perspectives of six disaster management professionals on the role of social workers in disaster management. The findings offer examples of social workers’ engagement in disaster work, emphasises the variable understanding of social work by disaster management personnel, and suggests that it is important for the profession of social work to have a more positive public profile. This may ensure that the public and disaster management personnel better understand the role of social workers and so engage more readily with them. Implications for future social work practice and education internationally as well as disaster management policy and practice are outlined in the article.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge to the social services workforce. They had to safely deliver services for children, families, and diverse communities during a global crisis. This study examined the associations between coping strategies, social worker’s job demands and psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic. 615 social workers, working in various organizations and diverse populations in Israel, participated in the study. The results revealed that social workers’ job demands during the COVID-19 pandemic were significantly associated with higher psychological distress. Coping strategies, especially emotion focused such as avoidance, detachment, seeking emotional support, projection, venting of emotions and attempts to see humor in the situation were associated with higher psychological distress and job demands. In addition, emotion focused coping strategies were found to mediate the association between job demands and psychological distress. The use of ventilation of emotion as a coping strategy was the most dominant coping strategy. Our findings highlight the importance of modifying social service job demands during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is recommended to prepare guidelines/recommendations for such events. In addition, it seems that support and supervision are needed to improve social workers’ coping strategies during crises and to enable an effective social work practice.

Social work is a profession whose role, relevance and importance to the general public is especially pronounced in times of emergency. Mostly, in normal times, the profession is identified with the weaker sections of society and with the less prestigious spheres of the public arena. Consequently, the public image associated with the profession is mainly negative and the financial compensation is particularly low. The current article presents the way in which the recognition and public visibility gained by social workers by the general public during the COVID-19 pandemic has been translated by social workers in Israel into a struggle to improve their professional conditions. The article compares the current struggle of social workers to previous struggles and analyzes the discourse that took place in the media and illustrates through it, a number of factors that led to its success. Firstly, the Corona epidemic highlighted the importance of social workers to society as a whole. Secondly, the ability of the professional leadership, in their struggle, to create a sense of a “collective” among social workers and finally the use of language that includes economic and political components that matched the language spoken by government representatives.

Mauritius is a small island state in the Indian Ocean that had to face two major disasters at the same time during the year 2020– COVID-19 and a major oil spill caused by a shipwreck. This article explores Mauritian social workers’ perspectives on the disaster governance in relation to the double disasters. The perspectives and contributions of the social workers are important in understanding and improving disaster governance since they are among the key actors in disaster prevention, mitigation, and response. The researchers interviewed 18 Mauritian social workers during the month of September 2020, using web-based interview tools. The interviews focused on how the respondents perceive existing structures and mechanisms for disaster social work and what they see as factors affecting disaster governance in Mauritius. The article discusses that there is a lack of organised structures and mechanisms for disaster social work, and that there is a need to promote good governance in disaster response in Mauritius. The paper concludes that clearer disaster governance structures and mechanisms would enable Mauritian social workers to contribute in disaster response in a more effective, organised and coordinated manner.

Acknowledging Gabriel García Márquez’s well-know novel Love in the Time of Cholera, this article explores the challenges of delivering social work services in the time of COVID-19, in the Global South. Staff experiences while working for a small rurally-based Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) in Ek Phnom, Cambodia are presented. A staff survey and structured conversations were used while completing an internal auditing process. This audit was undertaken to assess responses to the challenges of the virus and how to increase safety of staff and people using services. Key themes arising were:

• effective communication methods

• responsiveness of case management systems

• public health responses

• adapting to emerging needs

The gathered data resulted in a range of recommendations:

• strengthening partnerships can improve responsiveness to disasters

• case management systems need to be effective for current use but able to be adaptable to new circumstances

• disaster preparation should incorporate a focus on diversified funding streams

• open communication channels between staff and management are required

The outcomes of this work are useful for NGO directors, managers and social workers, consideration of recommendations will enable social workers to continue delivering services within a post-disaster context, in the Global South.

The paper by Boetto, Bell and Ivory (2021) reports on a scoping review of social work literature relating to disaster preparedness in the context of natural disasters. As a result of climate change, the frequency and magnitude of natural disasters is increasing. Marginalised groups and communities are disproportionately impacted by disasters and as a global profession committed to equity and justice, there is an ethical imperative for social work to actively engage in disaster preparedness practice as part of mainstream, generic practice. Through a systematic analysis of the literature, the authors:

• Provide a comprehensive overview of contextual factors impacting on levels of disaster preparedness and they also explore characteristics of effective preparedness planning.

• Discuss ways in which the social work profession contributes to multidisciplinary disaster practice and how these contributions can gain visibility and wider recognition.

• Highlight the need to embed disaster practice into the professional domain, through curriculum and education, standards for professional practice and opportunities for ongoing professional development.

• Argue that social workers need to maintain a clear focus on equity and environmental justice as transformative, culturally sensitive, community-based approaches to disaster practice are developed and implemented.

In this article, we address the experiences of Finnish frontline social workers during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020. We are interested in what types of challenges social workers faced in their everyday setting and what types of solutions they developed to meet these challenges. To find out this we asked 33 social workers to draft a free form personal diary from mid-March to the end of May 2020. The diary data is rare as it can authentically describe social workers’ moods and societal atmosphere in spring 2020.

The results of the study suggest that the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic challenged social work at all levels, from face-to-face interactions to its global relations. The pandemic revealed not only the number of existing problems of social work, but also created new types of challenges. It demanded ultimate resilience from social workers and a new type of adaptive capacity from social welfare and social care institutions. The study makes it clear how social workers, in many ways, acted as the invisible and ‘last resort tailboards’ for society, communities and especially people in vulnerable positions, in a rapid and unprecedented crisis.

Read the perspectives of social workers and human service professionals who supported individuals during the 2016 Wood Buffalo Wildfire in Alberta, Canada. Learn from their experiences on the need for social workers to assist emergency management professionals. Understand the important role of social workers in disaster planning, response, and recovery. Learn the importance of self-care, advocacy, funding, disaster training, and understanding the psychosocial needs of evacuees. Read the recommendations on creating support for social workers working in a community during a disaster, note the points regarding required training for social workers, and note the importance of building an identity for social workers in disaster management.

The current study examined action strategies adopted by social workers in the public service in response to the challenges faced by ethnic minorities during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, in-depth-interviews were conducted with social workers employed in the public welfare services in Israel, who work with Arab communities. The results revealed seven action strategies that have the potential to provide protection and support to a minority population group during the pandemic (e.g., use of local community assets, such as volunteers from the minority communities, who could provide instrumental support to populations at risk whose conditions worsened during the pandemic), bridge language and cultural gaps (e.g., use of online communication channels used by community residents to make information and services accessible) and promote policies that strive for social justice (e.g., social action strategy that aims to motivate the community from within to influence policy makers and to promote health equality during the pandemic). These results emphasize the importance of applying sensitive practices to the needs and culture of clients. The adoption of structural views on social problems, the development of non-hierarchical working relationships between clients and social workers, and partnerships with clients are required to provide tailored responses to the needs of minority clients and to promote social justice.

This paper examines the 2020 deployment of armed police to enforce lockdown in the central Melbourne housing high rise tower estates. Our research methodology comprises narrating experiences of a community leader who had direct contact with residents and is a co-author on this paper; accounts arising from an African community forum; and a review of media sources that are attentive to voice. Building on theorising derived from Helen Taylor and Jacques Derrida, we argue that responses to crises should be led by the wisdom of affected communities, in keeping with critical social work theories and practices. The lockdown was marked by an absence of community and social workers and led by top down state sanctioned policy that reinforced the social exclusion of residents in social housing. We argue that as critical social work educators, community workers and social workers on the frontline, we must work in partnership with culturally diverse newly arrived and long-established communities to promote social justice and human rights.

This paper reports the findings from a qualitative investigation into the experiences of Black African social workers during a period of the Covid-19 pandemic in England. Whilst the pandemic created concern and heightened anxiety for many people, its impact was experienced differently by diverse groups of professionals. Although all social workers in the frontline had to cope with direct risks in relation to safe working with service users, some Black African social workers also had to navigate discrimination and inequalities in the workplace while responding to the needs of service users and their families.

The main findings were that Black African social workers perceived some of their experiences to be racialised and discriminatory from managers and on occasion, from their peers. Using participant narratives, the author outlines the utility of Critical Race Theory in understanding these experiences and identifies culturally responsive leadership as one strategy which social work managers could adopt in their work with ethnic minority staff.

Human and animal lives are deeply intertwined, even when animals are hidden from human view. In this article we show how disasters devastate animals not only humans, and how their suffering is relevant to social work. Pets (companion animals), livestock (farmed animals) and wildlife (free-living animals), are all affected by droughts, bushfires, floods, and pandemics such as COVID-19. We discuss some of the dire consequences facing many species of animals in disasters, which have increased in frequency and intensity through climate change and industrialised animal agriculture. We argue that although current social work, especially in Australia, has been slow to incorporate animals in its purview, future social work has much to gain by doing so. We extend green social work and social work’s historical principle of person-in-environment to include non-human animals. An expanded version of feminist intersectionality, inclusive of species as an axis of oppression and privilege, is also provided to help conceptualise a way forward.

Parenting can be tough at the best of times but what is it like after a disaster? We spoke to mothers and fathers nearly seven years after the 2009 catastrophic bushfires in Victoria, Australia. They shared incredibly personal stories about the trauma, loss, and disruption caused by the fires, and ways in which they responded as parents. For many of those we spoke to, the experience was one of losing what had been normal. In the aftermath of the fires they were managing exposure to further stress and trauma, feeling as though the ability to have fun was gone, and living at capacity as demands competed for their time and energy. They worked hard to settle their families and regain a sense of normal, aiming to provide stability and familiarity, and manage their own emotions. They explained the pressure they felt around the need to settle, and that recovery took some several years or was ongoing. Understanding what this experience can be like will help social workers think about how to support parents and their families in finding their new normal after disasters.

• During COVID-19, many domestic and family violence services shifted to remote methods of service delivery.

• A survey was conducted to examine Australian practitioners’ experiences of adapting services during the pandemic.

• For many practitioners, technology-mediated service delivery was a new way of working, adopted out of necessity.

• Domestic violence work become more complex and challenging during the pandemic.

• Without face-to-face contact, it was more difficult for practitioners to assess risk.

• However, remote service delivery enabled services to be maintained and improved access for some client groups.

• Research should continue to monitor the impacts of technology-mediated service delivery and engage clients in assessing what works

Professional social work education continues to lack a community-contextualized curriculum and professional training that reflects the complexities of extreme events associated with community and human service. This absence jeopardizes the advancement of social work engagement in better providing humanitarian support for individuals, families, and communities affected by extreme events. Taking an undergraduate social work research methods course as a case study, this paper utilized a retrospective approach to analyze the instructor’s teaching experience, self-reflection, in-class observation, and students’ feedback. The study presents three major community-contextualized pedagogical innovations of integrating disaster components into the research methods course. These pedagogical innovations support the students’ exploration and development of various research paradigms and strengthen their ability to connect research with practice. This contextualizing process, which forms a community-based living laboratory, inspires instructors to integrate community-driven characteristics into their pedagogical instruments. The process illustrates a potential pedagogical framework for research methods courses, in particular and for social work curriculum, in general.

In this paper the authors demonstrate how:

• Contemporary complex humanitarian contexts are unfolding now and defining this century. These contexts are driven by overlapping crisis drivers and examples of these crisis drivers include the Coronavirus 2019 and the Black Lives Matter Movement.

• Complex humanitarian contexts are also defined by the colonial history of humanitarianism and by the rise of populist movements and their anti-immigration sentiments

• Principles from First Nations world views can be used in an Intercultural Social Work Curriculum to teach social work students about these structural and historical problems that have long underpinned complex humanitarian contexts

• Principles from First Nations world views prepare students to engage with communities impacted by humanitarian crises, ensuring that the pillars of the 2016 Localisation Agenda -equality, inclusion and social justice, are prioritised.

• The Localisation Agenda has spurred on the long overdue shift needed to maximise deeper relationships between humanitarian organisations and communities.

• Principles of First Nations world views will ensure that new social work graduates will be able to engage with this policy context and the various challenges in the realisation of the policy

Having found the existing standards which focus on how social work is taught to be unworkable during the pandemic, we sought to adapt our programmes in ways which we hoped would produce graduates with attributes consistent with the profession’s expectations of the capabilities of a social worker. However, as the pre-pandemic standards tend to be based on tradition, the underlying principles on which they were based were often not readily apparent. Hence, at the crux of our argument in this paper is that a principles-based and values-led approach is crucial to any future reimagining exercise of a more flexible model of governance and delivery of social work education.

Our experiences suggest that rather than having their education compromised by COVID-19, social work students at the time of the pandemic and into the future may in fact benefit from the changes that have emerged during this period. For example, students continue to undertake supervised projects that enable them to work independently to assist effective responses to agency specific and client specific issues. How students learn is changing and what they are learning will help them respond to the immediate and future needs arising from the pandemic.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Israeli social workers in health care were in the frontline. Therefore, in this research, we questioned: 1) the personal and professionals’ concerns of this group during the first months of the pandemic; 2) whether social workers who are mothers to children ages 0-18 are doing better or worse than mothers to older children. We received responses from 126 social workers in health care settings (most of them were women). We found the following results among this group of social workers: only one-third felt safe from being infected at their workplace; their most significant concern was how to do their job with all the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic; they felt they don’t get enough support at workplace; they feared a lot about infecting their family or patients with the virus; social workers who are mothers to younger children worried more about income loss and felt a clash between their work demands and their children’s needs. According to these findings, in times of health crisis we recommend continuous online support to social workers in health care from superior and staff. In addition, in times of health crisis or other disasters, we should pay more attention and provide better resources to social workers who are mothers to young children.

The impacts on adult social work in England of the Covid-19 pandemic were sudden. Many are lasting a long time. In England, many social workers started to work at home and talk to people by phone or online. The UK’s first national lockdown was followed by a lessening of restrictions, but a second wave started at the end of Summer 2020 and restrictions were re-introduced. This study reports on telephone interviews that took place August - October 2020 with 22 social workers working with adults in a wide range of roles. They were employed in 10 local authorities and two NHS Hospital Trusts. We discuss how they were using professional judgement about cases; what was new in their case work, and what changes they thought would last or be only temporary. These are compared with findings from other studies of practice in children’s services and from surveys of social workers during the Covid-19 pandemic. This study adds new knowledge about practice in adult services and people’s experiences during the emerging second wave of Covid-19 in England.

Children and youth are commonly viewed as vulnerable during times of disaster. However, research is increasingly uncovering the various ways that children and youth can and do demonstrate resilience when faced with the challenges of disaster. Based on research conducted with 83 children and youth (5 to 17 years) who experienced the 2013 flood in Alberta, Canada, this article discusses the factors that contribute to resilience in this disaster-affected population. A mixed-methods approach was used– the Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM-28) was administered, and in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with child/youth participants to examine the individual, caregiver, and contextual factors that contribute to resilience. The findings reveal that although child/youth participants experienced numerous challenges during and after the flood, they had higher than average levels of resilience. High levels of resilience were related to two primary factors– individual factors, specifically peer support, and caregiver factors, namely caregiver psychological support. These findings show that both peer support and caregiver psychological support play a crucial role in strengthening children and youth’s resilience following disaster. These findings highlight the importance of utilizing a social-ecological approach to resilience in social work policy and practice which is inclusive of peers and caregivers alike.

Social workers must continue to adopt community led responses to disasters. Such responses must also explicitly harness and build emancipatory hopes amongst community members in order to obtain transformational social change. This requires social work to work with communities to empower hope and be critically aware of structural factors that can erode hope. As the frequency and severity of disasters increases globally, this becomes evermore relevant for social work practice.