Bala Raju Nikku

Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development: Voices of the social work educators from Asia

Social work is contextual yet increasingly internationalized. The development of Global Agenda in 2012 by the IASSW, ICSW and IFSW gave educators and practitioners an opportunity to reflect on challenges of social work education and the profession in their respective countries. The current article discusses the key factors that confront and influence social work education and practice in the Asian region. The article brings out deep-rooted perceptions amongst educators in the region. The authors endeavour to present select views of social work educators from South Asian countries and suggest possible steps to realize the four goals of Global Agenda in the context of those countries.

Children’s rights in disasters: Concerns for social work – Insights from South Asia and possible lessons for Africa

Disasters around the world disrupt the lives of millions of people, especially pushing many children into armed conflict, prostitution, drug trafficking and other dangerous situations, resulting in violation of their rights. Approaches to disaster management continue to be largely technology-centred, top-down and isolated from human development processes in the region. The rescue–relief–rehabilitation (3R) model of interventions largely results in treating children as beneficiaries and not as actors. This article offers possible lessons for Africa, based on the South Asian experience of how children’s rights are (not) practised in the context of disasters.

Living through and responding to disasters: Multiple roles for Social Work

Undoubtedly, social work has a long history of responding to the needs of vulnerable populations, including those who experience natural or human-made disasters. Historically, social work has been involved in disaster relief; recovery dominated by psychosocial interventions and other models but has paid less attention to empowerment and social development in post-disaster recovery efforts. Therefore, the role of social work educators, students and practitioners in disasters has become a multifaceted terrain with multiple debates. Practitioners who believe in the social development role for social workers have argued that social workers should be involved in relief work, including using their core skills and knowledge to coordinate the often-chaotic environment of disaster relief, working in and with the community in order to increase access to government and community resources for vulnerable families. Others have argued for a dominant role for social workers in dealing with psychosomatic treatments responding to traumatic stress and counselling service providers. While healing and service provision are essential in the context of disasters, such activities do not necessarily address the politics of aid, access to services and ultimately bringing about social change. Social work scholars have documented that Social work is the profession that claims to intervene to enhance people’s well-being. However, social workers have played a low-key role in environmental issues that increasingly affect people’s well-being, both locally and globally (Dominelli, 2012). Similarly, Gray et al. (2013) argued that social work has been late to engage with the environmental movement. Often working with an exclusively social understanding of environment, much of the social work profession has overlooked the importance of environmental issues. There is little doubt that disaster management is an integral part of 21st century social work but unfortunately, the profession is only beginning to carve a niche to respond to disasters. Disasters (natural and human-made) have always been with us, but social work contributions to the reconstruction and rebuilding of communities after these disasters has not been well documented, particularly for Asian societies (Tan and Rowlands, 2007; Tang and Cheung, 2007). We do not know much about social work’s contribution to disasters like the 1993 Latur earthquake (India), 1999 Taiwan earthquake, 2001 Bhuj earthquake (India); 2004 Asian Tsunami, 2005 Kashmir earthquake (Pakistan), 2008 Sichuan earthquake (China); 2011 Japan tsunamigenic earthquake, and 2015 Nepal earthquakes. This does not mean that Asian social work

International Social Work

This article presents an overview of definitions of international social work (ISW), current debates, and future course of ISW profession and teaching. After a brief introduction, Section What Is ISW?: The Debate presents the debate on what is ISW. Scholars have argued that social work is a contextual profession and hence international and global social work debates are vane. Section Internationalization of Social Work: Profession and Education further elaborates the debate on internationalizing social work profession and education. The following Sections International or Universal Social Work? and International but Not Global? present the discussions on quest for universalism and on global social work. Section Conclusion is a concluding one.

Social policy, social work and age care in Nepal: mapping services and missing links

The emergence of an ageing population is a relatively new phenomenon in Nepal and has only just become an area of interest for researchers, health and social care practitioners and policy-makers. Life expectancy in Nepal has risen by more than 20 years in the past three decades and is currently 68 years of age. Until recently, Nepal was one of the few nations where men, on average, outlived women. As Nepal moves through the health transition this is no longer the case with recent statistics suggesting that an average life expectancy for females is now 69 years, two years greater than males. The ageing process in Nepal provides both challenges and opportunities for professionals, organisations and researchers. This paper provides an overview of the main issues related to an ageing population in Nepal and draws on research conducted under a British Academy Small Grant (BASG) project which ran from April 2011 until April 2012 in collaboration with the Nepal School of Social Work (NSSW), Kathmandu. Central issues emerging from the research suggest the need for more effective policies, better quality of care provision and perhaps more critically the role of advocacy in age-related concerns. Social work will have a key role to play in both advocating for the rights of the older population and ensuring that their needs are met.