Environmental Change and Sustainable Social Development

Social Work-Social Development Volume II

Sven Hessle

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781472416377
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317142355
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Biological Sciences

How does climate change affect social work and social development? What actions are needed to integrate the three pillars of economic development, environmental development and social protection? With global warming and the increase in natural disasters due to the emission of greenhouse gases, an alternative approach to the natural environment is vital. The main focus of this volume is to emphasize the person-in-environment concept and to find measures for its implementation. For social work the environment has traditionally been viewed as a world of human relationships as opposed to the interaction between man and environment. This informative and incisively written edited collection brings together experts from around the world to analyze the person-in-environment concept and to find measures for its implementation. Through the presentation of theoretical and practical platforms for environmental social work or 'green social work', we hope to bring about a new paradigmatic shift in our attitude to the concept of person-in- environment.

Chapter 1
Introduction

Sven Hessle

A Global Agenda as Point of Departure – Development of Themes

This is the second volume of three covering the most important aspects of social work and social development themes in the world today. Environmental Change and Sustainable Social Development is the topic in focus in this volume. The other Volumes cover Human Rights and Social Equality: Challenges for Social Work (Volume I) and Global Social Transformation and Social Action: the Role of Social Workers (Volume III).

The main international organisations representing social policy and social work gathered together in Stockholm in July 2012 under the main theme Social Work and Social Development 2012: Action and Impact.¹

At the 2012 conference, we wanted to advance the work on the Global Agenda and beyond by addressing and demonstrating the actions that might be required to develop and accomplish the Agenda – with regard to methods in practice and research, in social policy and social work education, and in a broader discourse of global commitment and cooperation.²

The conference also provided opportunities to discuss issues which the social work and social welfare sectors face every day and to ensure a closer link between evidence-based practice, policy objectives and social development goals. Furthermore, the conference revealed how the actions that were meant to develop and accomplish the Global Agenda, might impact on the conditions of people and demonstrate how actions in the social work and social development community can contribute to an enduring physical environment and sustainable social development.

Selection of Contributions for the Volumes

It is an understatement to say that the Stockholm conference was a success with about 2,500 participants representing 106 nations present. Around 2,100 abstracts and poster suggestions were received in advance for assessment by an international selected panel. Every contribution was evaluated on a Five-point scale by two independent members of the panel. It should be noticed that we did our best to recruiting expertise in the panel for the three main themes of the conference.

The volumes that comprise the three themes have been edited with the intention of being representative of the basic theme covered, including a wide panorama of international examples of implementations. But, first and foremost, the contributions were selected from those abstracts that the international panel evaluated as the best within its theme.

We could not cover all the subjects in the conference completely, but the priority was to deliver academic research presentations as well as presentations from practicing social workers.

I am sure that any reader, whether from social policy/welfare, social work practice, education or research will find treasures for inspiration in this kaleidoscope of current implementations and discourses round the world.

Environmental Change and Sustainable Social Development – an Overview

With global warming and the increase in natural disasters, an alternative approach to the natural environment is vital. The main focus of this volume is to emphasise the person-in-environment concept and to find measures for implementation of it. For social work the environment has traditionally been viewed as a world of human relationships. The physical world has had a hard struggle to enter the environmental perspective. The contributions from indigenous people wherever they live, can teach us how to live with, have a dialogue with and appreciate nature. The increasing number of disasters, manmade or natural, seems to be nature’s answer to international neglect.

In this volume we have the pleasure of presenting theoretical and practical platforms for Environmental Social Work or Green social work, or whatever you want to call what we call a new paradigmatic shift in our attitude to person-in-environment.

The representatives of this paradigmatic change in social work have written for this volumeand together with the contributions in the special issue on environmental social work in the International Journal of Social Welfare that was published for and distributed to all participants at the Stockholm Conference, would be enough knowhow to make a difference in the future.³

In this volume we have collected lots of ideas about how social work has developed the profession in different forms of Disaster Management related to manmade or natural disasters around the world.

A final question is what actions are needed to integrate the three pillars of Economic development, Environmental development and Social protection? Some contributions might be of inspiration for challenging this question, posed in 1992 at the UN Summit in Rio de Janeiro, especially in Chapters 6, 8 and 9.

Cindy Blackstock (Canada) opens this volume in Chapter 2 with an important message: The Government of Canada is on trial for racial discrimination against First Nations children. The systematic deprivation of proper education coupled with the trauma related to cultural dislocation, abuse and neglect spurred multi-generational cycles of trauma and poverty that continue to undermine First Nations families today. While First Nations are confident that the Tribunal, upon hearing all of the evidence during 2013, will conclude that discrimination has occurred, there is no doubt that this case will set an important national and international precedent on Indigenous child rights.

In Chapter 3, Environmental Social Work, Fred Besthorn (USA) commands those who are representing social work to join with those peoples at local levels most impacted by environmental decline and most knowledgeable and prepared to take the action necessary to improve their unique situations.

In his own words:

It must begin with our genuine curiosity for what is possible, must be imbued with a spirit of contemplation, considered thought and deliberation concerning the next steps and must be sustained by a commitment to connection, bilateral and multilateral cooperation, and inclusivity of the broadest possible range of voices and perspectives. And finally it must fully incorporate the experiences, insights and real-world solutions that every day, hard-working people have into what is important and necessary to their well-being – in their place and at their time. This is what social work does, it is what we can do well and it is what we must do now.

In Chapter 4, Disaster Management: Perspectives for Social Work and Social Development, we look into what disaster management means, both theoretically and practically, for different disasters in different parts of the world.

Roland Sewell (UK) brings us closer to the concept through the Disaster Management Cycle for planning for; reducing the impact of reaction during and immediately following and then recovery from a disaster. Then follows a few examples of disaster management in different part of the world, and where social work has had to fight for, but found, its acknowledged role.

One key to that accomplishment is formulated by Xiulan Zhang (China) through the experience of Chinese social work action and impact in disaster management of the earthquakes that hit China on a regular basis:

the acts of persistence and companionship that qualify social workers as helping professionals and, arguably more important, wins the hearts of the people.

Decha Sungkawan (Thailand) includes a Gender Awareness Perspective in the guidelines for social workers from both public and private sectors, from the established Manual for Disaster Management in Thailand which has been stricken by many flooding disasters during recent years.

The 2004 South Asian tsunami affected 12 countries. In Sri Lanka, immediate aid was provided primarily by local people. We present two of the still ongoing studies from the aftermath of the disaster. Tom Vickers (UK) and Lena Dominelli (UK) specify two different models for empowering interventions involving intensive and long-lasting partnerships built on trust and listening to local actors in order to engage local communities in the empowering processes of giving and receiving aid.

Lena Dominelli has compiled qualitative data with a special focus on women’s experiences. She found that stereotyped, unitary identities and traditional gender relations excluded women, during and after the tsunami. Realising equality and empowerment for women in such circumstances is difficult, and makes listening to women crucial to aid responses.

The more recent earthquake that struck Haiti, killing 316,000 individuals, injuring 300,000, and causing one million people to lose their homes, caused The State University of New Jersey in the US to be first social work responders in the aftermath of the earthquake. Antoinette Farmer (USA) and Ronald Quincy (USA) describe the training, including the field experience, social workers are provided with.

Chapter 5, Indigenous Understanding of Environmental Change and its Social Consequences, presents two contributions from different parts of the world.

In the first part, Hilary Weaver (USA), a First Nation Lakota, gives the reader a thorough understanding of how climate change is influencing the lives of indigenous people. Her own Lakota teachings tell her that: ‘ … Seven generations ago my ancestors planned for me in ways that assured a place for me in this contemporary world. I have the same responsibility to plan for the next seven generations’.

In the second part Sarangadhar Samal (India) communicates the success story about how, over the years, a fishing village in India that was devastated during a flood, became a green, living and prosperous, local agricultural community.

Chapter 6, Integrating Economic, Environmental and Social Perspectives, discusses the current challenges after all the UN summits conducted since 1992. Four contributions are presented: The ILO’s Social Protection Floors Recommendation; the interesting case of rapid Rwandan development ; children’s voices as agents for the right to survive climate change and finally, an example of the unavoidable multidisciplinary approach for getting close to a holistic vision for action.

Alejandro Bonilla Garcia gives a detailed presentation of the newly adopted Recommendation on The Social Protection Floor, R 202, by the International Labour Organization (ILO). It is clear in stating that social protection floors are a fundamental element of national social security systems and that they should be established and maintained within strategies for the extension of social security that progressively ensure higher levels of social security to as many people as possible, guided by ILO social security standards.

Antoinette Lombard (South Africa) and André Viviers (South Africa) describe from their South African /UNICEF collaborative project how important it is to include children as active citizens in social, economic and environmental development. Globally, climate change will have a profound impact on children’s right to survival, development, protection and participation.

In Multidisciplinary education for environmental sustainability, Cathryne Schmitz (USA) and Tom Matyók (USA) describe the development of a fascinating multidisciplinary course in which students work at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels through the lens of mega analysis. At the core of the educational process is multidisciplinary team-building in which students have a collective responsibility for their learning. Through this process students are immersed in a culture that values civic engagement and global citizenship.

Chapter 7, Social Action for Clean Water is of course one of the future basic issues has two contributions calling for action.

Pius Mutuku Mutie (Kenya) notes that only 57 per cent of households in Kenya have access to water that is ‘considered safe’. And the proportion is even lower (only 50%) for rural populations. There are many households in Kenya whose nearest water source (a river, stream, well or a dam) is more than 10 kilometres away. So the priority in many arid and semi-arid parts of Kenya has actually been one of access to ‘just’ water and not necessarily ‘clean’ water. Through a bottom-up and participatory approach, social workers are pivotal in preparing communities to engage in sustainable projects. In a poor country such as Kenya, community organisation/development skills are necessary to enable a social worker to know how to mobilise communities for larger development programmes and empower the people to self-determination.

Exposure to chemicals has been documented to have harmful physical effects on children and adults. With a focus on children, Katie Findley (USA), Laurel Laiewski (USA) and Mary E. Rogge (USA) show, with much empirical evidence, that children are especially at risk from and sensitive to pesticide exposure. The authors provide information with resources about policy, practice and research on pesticides and water at local, national and international levels.

In Chapter 8, Social Economy and Sustainable Social Development: Local Lessons: Global Challenges, Deirdre Tedmanson (Australia) presents an enterprise development project in collaboration with remote indigenous communities in Australia. Community members operate an academic, cultural tourism venture entitled ‘Learning Country’ which aims to enable social work academics and students to participate in an ‘on country’ pre-placement learning exchange experience, hosted and guided by elders and leaders from the Anangu homelands.

Francis Adaikalam (India) takes us to the world of microfinance systems in a comparative study of rural housing districts in India.

In Chapter 9 Sustainable Social Development: Research, Education and Practice, Rhonda Patrick (USA) and Monit Cheung (USA) present a design for a global access education model using technology to connect both urban and rural universities from six continents. Twelve universities have been invited to participate in this project. They represent countries from six continents: Africa, Australia, Asia, Europe and Oceania, South and North America. This global, web-based education model yields innovative ideas for comparing urban and rural practice, and emphasises the importance of virtual learning processing, community participation, and exchange of service implementation strategies that are culturally relevant.

In Chapter 10, Lena Dominelli has the final word in this volume, being one of the most important representatives of the paradigmatic step that social policy and social work now are taking.⁴ In her contribution Environmental Justice at the Heart of Social Work Practice: Greening the Profession, she argues that social workers...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Government of Canada: On Trial for the Racial Discrimination of First Nations Children
• 3 Environmental Social Work: A Future of Curiosity, Contemplation and Connection
• 4 Disaster Management: Perspectives for Social Work and Social Development
• 5 Indigenous Understanding of Environmental Change and its Social Consequences
• 6 Integrating Economic, Environmental and Social Perspectives
• 7 Social Action for Clean Water
• 8 Social Economy and Sustainable Social Development: Local Lessons – Global Challenges
• 9 Sustainable Social Development: Research, Education and Practice
• 10 Environmental Justice at the Heart of Social Work Practice: Greening the Profession
• Appendix: The Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development
• Index