Lorna Elizabeth Hallahan

Legitimising Social Work Disability Policy Practice: Pain or Praxis?

Abstract This paper examines the policy practice of a social worker academic with lived experience of disability. The author illustrates her reflections through an exploration of national consultations that contributed to the development of a National Disability Strategy. Policy is presented as a discursive practice built on an intersubjective framework for interpreting disability experience. Social works unofficial mantra is that we work from private pain to public issues in pursuit of personal liberation and flourishing in civil, inclusive, and just communities. Using Pierre Bourdieus concepts of capital, fields of power, and habitus this view of social work, expressed through the politics of presence of people living with disability, is problematised as potentially tokenistic and exploitative. Electing to steer away from any processes that approach the politics of the tragic spectacle (Elliot, 2002), the author concludes that her practice is legitimised through a commitment to mobilise the cultural and knowledge capital built through the habitus of social work policy practice and the symbolic capital of disablement-both of which can be deployed to develop the capacity of colleagues in the disability movement.

Fun Days Out: Normalising social experiences for refugee children

Abstract A program called Fun Days Out which offers normalising social experiences for refugee children is presented and reviewed. The evidence for a recreational approach to recovery from trauma through community integration for refugee children in South Australia is examined, focusing on the literature about traumatised children, resilience, community development and relevant social work theory. The article concludes that the program foundations and operations are well-supported in the literature and calls for further research, especially program evaluation which measures the lasting impacts of intervention, as the basis for expansion in this model of working with vulnerable children and young people.

Believe That a Farther Shore Is Reachable from Here: Mapping Community as Moral Loving Journeying

SUMMARY How do relationships become transformational for all of us? Asking why people with disability should bother with community, this paper explores the concept of communio as loving, moral journeying. Asking who shall travel with us, the paper also looks closely at the qualities of people who can be mobilized to bridge differences. In this way, community is seen as verb rather than noun, as praxis rather than goal, as activity rather than product, as participation rather than membership, as embarking rather than arriving, as fickle rather than fixed, as insecure rather than stitched up, as adventure rather than feat, as desire and disappointment rather than destination. And living thus, we can trek to that farther shore-vital and resilient community.

The Whirlwinds of War: Conflict, Disability, and Theological Reflection

ABSTRACT With this new century we face increasing levels of war, conflict and violence, and major causes of disability; in times of conflict people with disabilities are more likely to be neglected; the needs of people with disabilities prevail long past the end of hostility. This essay presents theological and other resources that give spiritual and moral depth to the quest for an end to violence. Reflection on theology and the struggle of people with disabilities can sustain our hopes and our actions, can give energy and vitality to our attempts to live in communities of resistance and solidarity, and can break the boundaries that place others beyond the scope of our moral concern.