Social Work Practice During Times of Disaster

Disasters affect people individually and collectively in their communities, national societies, and the international sphere and in any setting from the home to the planetary level. Furthermore, these disasters can be complex, multi-layered and what happens in one location can affect sentient beings elsewhere directly and/or indirectly. These create interdependencies between people, the flora, fauna, and physical environment that require the holistic, transdisciplinary approaches to disasters that are advocated by green social work perspectives.

Using case studies drawn from practice and research to explore the skills and knowledge needed by social workers to practice within disaster situations, this book illustrates what good social work practice during times of disaster looks like. It highlights the theories, skills and expertise needed to intervene effectively in specific disaster situations and provides case studies as a major vehicle for considering ethical dilemmas and skills sets that facilitate interventions in specific disasters. Part One focuses on disasters that afflict the UK where social workers may be part of the emergency response including floods, droughts, cold-snaps, windstorms, storm surges, fires, chemical discharges, terrorism and Covid-19. And, given the interdependent nature of disasters, this section also draws upon knowledge from the international sphere to show how the local and global are interlinked. Part Two considers disasters that dominate in other parts of the world, but which have impacts upon the UK, either because its personnel go overseas to provide humanitarian aid, or because the victim-survivors of such disasters seek sanctuary in/migrate to the UK. These disasters include refugees from earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, armed conflict and climate change. The ethical dilemmas that social workers face during all disasters are particularly poignant in the case of asylum seekers and refugees.

This book will be of interest to all social work professionals, practitioners in emergency and health settings working with social workers, academics and students both in the UK and around the world.

Lena Dominelli (Professor) is Chair of Social Work and Director of the MSc in Disaster Interventions and Humanitarian Aid at the University of Stirling. She has undertaken research in projects including climate change and extreme weather events, health pandemics such as Covid-19; earthquakes; volcanic eruptions; disaster interventions; vulnerability and resilience; community engagement; coproduction and participatory action research; and climate risk for young people. Lena has published widely in social work, social policy and sociology, including several ground-breaking classics, the latest on Green Social Work which provides a theory and practice of disasters from a social justice perspective that includes environmental justice and sustainability. A key message of her research is using a holistic approach that includes the duty of people to take care of Planet Earth by seeking alternatives to fossil fuel-based patterns of production and consumption to ensure sustainable approaches to meeting human needs and ending wars through the peaceful resolution of conflicts. She founded Social Work for Peace to this end. She currently chairs the IASSW Committee on Disaster Interventions, Climate Change and Sustainability and attended United Nations discussions on climate change (UNFCCC COP), since Cancun, Mexico in 2010. She also chairs the Special Interest Group on Disasters, SPEDI, for the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) and is a founder member of the England Round Table on Disasters and Social Work. She has received various honours and prizes for her work.