Practicing Rights: Human Rights-based Approaches to Social Work Practice

Social work Codes of Ethics of professional organizations around the world appeal to the concept of people having ‘rights’ that social workers need to respect and advocate for. However, it isn’t always clear how social workers can actually incorporate human rights-based approaches in their practice, whether domestic or international. This book fills this gap by advancing rights-based approaches to social work.

The first part gives an overview of the relationship between human rights and social work, and outlines a model for how rights-based approaches can be integrated into social work practice.

The second part introduces the rights-based framework across five mainstream areas of practice – poverty, child welfare, older adults, health, and mental health. Each of these substantive chapters:

• introduces the area of practice and traditional social welfare interventions associated with it
• outlines relevant human rights frameworks
• explores case studies showcasing rights-based approaches
• presents practical implications for implementing rights-based social work practice.

The book ends with a discussion of the limitations and criticisms of rights-based approaches and lays out some future directions for practice.

This accessible text is designed for all those interested in learning how to introduce human rights-based interventions into their practice. It will be of particular use to social work students taking direct practice, macro practice, social policy, international social work and human rights courses as part of their program.

David Androff, MSW, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University where he is Associate Director of the Office of Global Social Work and a Senior Sustainability Scholar with the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability. He earned his Masters and Ph.D. in Social Welfare from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Androff’s interests center on building strong and sustainable communities through promoting human rights. His scholarship explores the connections between human rights and social work and has investigated Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, refugee empowerment, immigration policy, human trafficking. Dr. Androff’s scholarship was recognized with the 2011 Emerging Scholar Award from the Association of Community Organization and Social Administration. He is a founding member of the CSWE Committee on Human Rights.