Helen Charnley

Making the Familiar Strange and Making the Strange Familiar: Understanding Korean Children's Experiences of Living with an Autistic Sibling.

Based on the findings of a small‐scale study using visual ethnographic techniques with nine South Korean children, this article explores the role of culture in understanding autism. While autism is embedded within the ‘strange’ and ‘unfamiliar’, linked to exclusion and discrimination in Korean society, the children focussed on reframing their experiences of living with autism as ‘ordinary’. Despite the limitations of the small sample, the richness and depth of data generated by children themselves offers new insights into children’s interpretations and experiences of autism and raises interesting questions for cross cultural research in the field of disability.

Developing cultural competence as a framework for anti-heterosexist social work practice : reflections from the UK.

• Summary: This article examines the continuing marginalization of sexual orientation in social work practice. Taking the findings and recommendations of a small scale exploratory study as our starting point, we review United Kingdom (UK) research on social work and sexual orientation and illustrate the contradictions and constraints in implementing effective strategies for change. We explore the potential of cultural competence as a framework for developing anti-heterosexist practice. • Findings: Current cultural competence frameworks have potential for developing anti-heterosexist practice through attention to awareness and understanding of attitudes, knowledge and skills. But they are limited by weak attention to underpinning theory, to the application of principles in practice, the complex reality of multi-cultural membership and the application of cultural competence at an organizational level. • Applications : These findings have utility for social work students, educators and trainers, for the development of professional standards, for social work practice and supervision, and for organizations in creating inclusive learning and working environments and resisting heterosexism in social work.

‘We do not have chiefs who are disabled’: disability, development and culture in a continuing complex emergency

In 2011 The World Health Organization declared disability an international development priority. Yet disability and disabled people are barely visible in the Millennium Development Goals. Exploring disabled people’s involvement in development processes in Binga District, Zimbabwe, this article: illuminates the impact of cultural beliefs about disability that systematically exclude disabled people from development initiatives; assesses the strengths and limitations of the capability approach for theorising disability; and considers the role of (u)buntu, a philosophy based on human relatedness and interdependence, in promoting justice for disabled people in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Sustainability of Substitute Family Care for Children Separated from Their Families by War: Evidence from Mozambique

This article presents the findings of an empirical study exploring the sustainability of the substitute family in supporting children separated from their families during Mozambiques 16-year civil conflict. It describes shifts in the boundaries that have defined arrangements for the care of children separated from their normative family care givers and shows that, contrary to received wisdom based on traditional forms of child care, children and substitute families have achieved lasting relationships through new forms of mutual support that typify indigenous coping mechanisms in times of stress.