ROLE OF SOCIAL WORK IN MIGRATION AND REFUGEE CRISIS (original) (raw)
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Social Work With Migrants and Refugees
Advances in Social Work
This special issue of Advances in Social Work focuses on current challenges and best practices with migrants and refugees, in an increasingly difficult global context. Over the past decade, forced migration and displacement reached record numbers, while complex geopolitical, economic, and environmental factors contributed to escalating current challenges. International human rights and migration laws provide a framework too narrow and too limited for these recent developments. Political pressure and a growing identity crisis add to the xenophobia and climate of fear, in which security has in some cases become the primary rationale underpinning rapidly changing migration policies. Social work as a profession – in education and practice – has an important (if largely unfulfilled) role to play in advancing the human rights of migrants and refugees. In this commentary, we outline the macro contexts that shape social work practice with migrants and refugees, highlighting the great potent...
Refugee as a human displacement has gained greater worrisome prominence in the internationaldiscourse as the number of refugees and internally displaced persons in the today's world continues to rise with newer experiences and challenges. At the local and international levels, people have been forced to flee as a result of natural and man-made factors. The objectives of this research were: to review and analyze the knowledge and thinking about refugees and displaced persons through existing research and experience , to highlight the reasons for this mass movement of people , to look at the plight of these refugees , suggest that social workers can do to ameliorate the plight of refugees and recommend strategies for mitigating migration generally as guide for future work and implementation for refugee services.The methodology adopted in the research includes, structured interview,literature review and analysis and focused group discussion (FGD). The finding arising from this research showed that people have been displaced due to environmental/ecological factors, socioeconomic depression, political stability, violence/war, terrorism,persecution, growth in population, ethno-political conflict/tension, breakdown of state structures an institutions among others.Also, findings showed that refugees ad IDPs face pitiable physical,emotional,psychological tension/trauma, economic resources lack and human rights abuse which shows that social workers role in stemming and mitigating migration and the plight of refugees cannot be over emphasized.Against this backdrop, the researcher recommends that government at all levels should provide for the human and materials need of the people, ensure peace and harmony, integrate policy thrust, resources and needs of the refugees into all aspects of national development planning. Also, nations should be alive to the protection, support and assistance programmes for the refugees and internally displaced persons as relief officials and agencies become more dedicated and committed to their duties and responsibilities of providing professional services and support good for the refugees, displaced persons and society.Similarly, more social workers should work in refugee and IDPs camps to provide professional services and support beneficial to those vulnerable persons as well as to see to the strict enforcement and implementation of the 1995 UN convention and the 1967 protocol among signatory nations.
The landscape for social work is continually changing and working with asylum seekers remains a highly charged and contested area of practice. This paper compares the role of social workers working with asylum seekers in statutory and voluntary-sector settings in the UK. Institutional practices suggest a divide between statutory settings and charitable organisations. However, based on empirical qualitative research and in-depth interviews with thirty-four social workers in Scotland and the southeast of England that explored dominant discourses influencing their practice, we suggest considerable similarities in the different sectors. Austerity measures for local authorities (LA) and voluntary agencies have resulted in the closure of specialist teams and reduced funding for social workers. Findings highlight politicised dominant narratives when working with asylum seekers and we argue for alternatives that promote a more nuanced perspective of entitlement and human rights.
European Journal of Social Work, 2020
Social work with displaced people has an extended background in the history of the profession. Yet, it has taken different forms and remits over time, parallel to the evolving legal and political definition of refugee themselves. Inside Europe, in particular, social work with forced migrants has gained new visibility and increasing complexity after the so-called refugee crisis. Aspects like people’s limited visibility and eligibility towards formal welfare services, their uncertain legal status, their temporal “liminality” and their non-linear patterns of mobility have all major consequences for social work practice, research and education. In discussing them, we highlight the need to invest in students’ (and practitioners’) reflexivity, given both the complexity of building up trust based relationships with forcibly displaced people, and the risk of cultivating essentialized, stigmatizing or nativist representations about them. In all of these respects, our introduction provides a conceptual basis for this Special Issue of EJSW, and for the broader debate in social work across Europe.
European Journal of Social Work, 2020
Social work with displaced people has an extended background in the history of the profession. Yet, it has taken different forms and remits over time, parallel to the evolving legal and political definition of refugee themselves. Inside Europe, in particular, social work with forced migrants has gained new visibility and increasing complexity after the so-called refugee crisis. Aspects like people's limited visibility and eligibility towards formal welfare services, their uncertain legal status, their temporal "liminality" and their non-linear patterns of mobility have all major consequences for social work practice, research and education. In discussing them, we highlight the need to invest in students' (and practitioners') reflexivity, given both the complexity of building up trustbased relationships with forcibly displaced people, and the risk of cultivating essentialized, stigmatizing or nativist representations about them. In all of these respects, our introduction provides a conceptual basis for this Special Issue of EJSW, and for the broader debate in social work across Europe.
The Role of Social Work in the Context of Refugess and Asylum Seekers Rights in Indonesia
The plight of refugees and asylum seekers has been a trending issue of critical importance for social workers in Indonesia. At the end of February 2018, the public was overwhelmed by mass media coverage of a large number of refugees living on the streets in front of the Immigration Office in Jakarta. Their existence needs to be noticed by the government in particular and all parties in general, as it may create a new social problem. Many of the difficulties experienced by them, but the most felt is due to the issue of legal status and language barrier; they can not access public services such as healthcare, education, work, and others. Social workers work to uphold the dignity of all those refugees and asylum seekers including unaccompanied minors (UAM) and to work with them for successful social functioning. This paper explores available integrative literature, quantitative document analysis, and presents mixed methodology through individual interviews and an exploratory study to analyze social workers' role to respond the various issues faced by today's refugees and asylum seekers rights as well as potential way for being supporting document as a policy framework for Indonesian government to ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention.
The social problems of marginalised child asylum seekers
2020
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is a human rights framework in the context of multi-level governance child protection policies central to social work education and practice (United Nations, 1989). In line with this statement, children’s rights-based education introduces undergraduate social work students to the principles of the CRC, namely participation, protection, harm prevention and provision, to facilitate knowledge acquisition by building core competencies for critical practice (IFSW, 2002). It equips social workers with analytical and advocacy skills that foster critical thinking and creativity in the juxtaposition between child protection, autonomy and self-determination. This chapter provides insights for social work education to locate and analyse the underlying casualties of social problems using a problem and resource framework, the w-questions (Geiser, 2015). The framework is used to develop theory driven social work interventions as illustrated against ...