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The capability approach has recently been recognised as a potential explanatory theory in disability research. However, to strengthen its explanatory power, it is argued that it should be grounded ...

INTRODUCTION: National suicide prevention strategies and action plans have, historically, been written without input from consumers/current users of mental health services. People who could arguably be seen as experts in this area are rarely asked for their knowledge regarding the efficacy of suicide prevention and intervention efforts. The aims of this study were to gain further insight into the effectiveness of suicide prevention intervention in Aotearoa New Zealand by asking service users “What works?” and to promote lived experience as a valid form of evidence. This article focuses on the importance of a holistic model of health and wellbeing and highlights the role played by social workers, both currently and in the future, regarding suicide prevention and intervention efforts.METHODS: Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals with lived experience of suicidal ideation and/or attempt.FINDINGS: Using thematic analysis, a variety of interventions were identified which participants found effective, including exercise, addressing physical health needs, practising mindfulness, use of medications and spirituality. These interventions, and others, are presented as themes within a framework of people, body, mind and spirit.CONCLUSIONS: It is important to view health holistically, and social workers can make an important contribution towards wellbeing through the provision of psychosocial interventions. Also, it is crucial to involve individuals with lived experience within research that informs policy and practice, and within collaborative treatment decisions.

In 2020, social workers across the world responded to the global COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent strict lockdown procedures over several months. In many countries, including Australia and New Zealand, this virtual shutdown period necessitated a reframing of social work practice to incorporate factors including delivery of services via virtual means and more limited access for vulnerable clients. This article draws on the integration of two methods designed to address the research question: ‘How has social work practice in Australia and New Zealand been affected by COVID-19?’ These include (i) a narrative review of papers published during 2020 on social work practice and the COVID-19 pandemic and (ii) an online survey, undertaken from October to December 2020, of Australian and New Zealand social workers. The questionnaire data were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and thematic analysis. The findings of this article details include the significant impacts of COVID-19 on practice, the increased needs of clients, including a rise in health issues, violence, homelessness and financial concerns, and the resulting critical changes to social work workloads. Social workers also reported greater use of technologies to deliver services and fears for their families and themselves if exposed to COVID-19., This article examines how Australian and New Zealand social workers have adjusted to the COVID-19 pandemic. The article draws on a literature review of international social work papers published during 2020 and a survey of social workers in Australia and New Zealand to determine the impacts on social workers. We find there are similarities in responses noted by social workers across the world including the enhanced use of technologies, difficulties supporting vulnerable clients and personal impacts in both work and home environments. There are also differences brought about by Australian and New Zealand social workers’ prior experiences of disasters as well as issues with technology.

Amartya Sen’s capability approach is often used in disability research as a normative framework for describing and evaluating the well-being of people with disabilities. Nevertheless, recently, the...

To date, the agency of people with disabilities has seldom been elaborated theoretically and empirically in disaster research. Drawing on the capability approach, this paper examines the agency of ...

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PurposeThe purpose of this article is to examine disaster justice for people with disabilities (PWD).Design/methodology/approachDrawing on the capability approach, the article explores distributive injustice that PWD face in dealing with disasters. It discusses procedural justice with a focus on the agency of PWD and their participation in decision-making processes concerning disaster risk reduction.FindingsIt argues that disaster injustice faced by PWD can be construed as the inequalities of capabilities that they experience in coping with disasters. Furthermore, although social structures play an important role in creating and perpetuating disaster injustice, PWD, as agents of change, have power to transform social structures that, in turn, bring about justice for themselves.Originality/valueThe article raises the need for considering the equality of capabilities and human agency in achieving disaster justice for PWD.

The aim of this study was to understand the extent, range and nature of social work research activity after natural disasters and to identify the implications for future research and practice. A Scoping review methodology framework was used search of three databases: Web of Science, ProQuest and Informit was conducted to identify relevant studies between 2000 and 2018. Selection of studies was based on empirical research about social work and natural disasters and/or authored by social workers. Study selection found a total of 38 relevant articles. Charting the data was conducted and the following areas of focus were summarised: (1) interventions relating to psychosocial care, aid work and community work; (2) the effects of disasters on people and mediators of these effects; (3) social work education and challenges in disaster relief; and (4) measuring mental health outcomes of people who have experienced a disaster event. This scoping review has established that there is a range of social work literature focused on natural disasters that primarily examines social work interventions, the effects of disasters and social work education. Future social work research and practice needs to focus on the types and timing of interventions that promote positive recovery following natural disasters.

INTRODUCTION: Without personal experience or specific background knowledge of an issue, individuals exposed to news media are limited in their ability to gauge the accuracy of media content. The perception of people with mental illness as dangerous or incompetent allows for discrimination to occur, often resulting from inaccurate portrayals in the media. METHOD: A small, qualitative study was undertaken to explore key informant perspectives on the representation of mental health issues in the current Aotearoa New Zealand media context. Eight semi-structured interviews were carried out with key informants; each participant provided at least one of the following perspectives: mental health professional, mental health advocate, mental health consumer and/or media personnel. FINDINGS: The participants in this research found that news media strongly influence how the public views mental health, but believe media representation has improved in recent years. However, participants described an absence of stories illustrating successful interventions and felt that the portrayal of mental illnesses are still misrepresented and stigmatised by the media. Mental health services and mental health professionals were seen as poorly represented by the news media, which was thought to deter help-seeking and hinder trust. CONCLUSION: Public attitudes towards mental health have a significant impact on the lives of those experiencing mental distress. The news media have the ability to change public perceptions; however, this influence can be either harmful or helpful. Mental health stories need to be consistently contextualised and use inclusive language in order to a make a positive large- scale change in public attitudes.

While the capability approach is increasingly being adopted for evaluating well-being and social justice in the field of human development, this approach in disaster research has remained scarce. This research thus seeks to address the disaster risk that humans face through a lens of capabilities, with a focus on the lives of people with disabilities. A multi-case study approach was adopted and two rural communes in Vietnam were selected as study contexts. Data were collected using focus group discussions and interviews that involved people with disabilities, parents/caregivers of people with intellectual/psychosocial disabilities, and representatives from related organizations. It was found that people with disabilities are affected by disasters due to the lack of capabilities that they value in coping with disasters. A range of capabilities that people with disabilities value was revealed in the study sites, with many being valued not only in times of disasters but also in daily life. The findings also highlight that, to actualize their valued capabilities, people with disabilities need access not only to resources but also to the factors that enable them to convert the resources to their valued capabilities. In most cases, the limitations to the achievement of capabilities are related to the external environment.

Supervision is increasingly defined by reflection and traumainformed knowledge and practice. When faced with a disaster, the role and function of supervision is changed by the scale of events, with...

This viewpoint explores the concept of “resilience” and the divergent uses of this term by those experiencing adversity, and by those observing and responding to the adversity of others.

Objectives: A proportion of older people with mild dementia are safe to drive. However, driving cessation is recommended at some point as the disease progresses. Driving cessation can have significant psychological and social consequences on people with dementia and their carers. This paper aims to explore the psychosocial and adjustment issues following driving cessation for people with dementia and their supporters. Method: Participants and their supporters were interviewed within 1 month of driving-cessation advice, and again 6 months later. Issues associated with driving cessation were explored in semi-structured interviews. Results: Seven participants and their supporters were recruited. This has generated a total of 22 transcripts for qualitative analysis including follow-up interviews. For those who could remember the details of driving cessation, most were unhappy with the decision. Carers who were supportive of driving cessation questioned the legality of it. Most participants minimised the impact of their driving cessation on their supporters. Most supporters were negatively affected by the decision. Conclusions: The preliminary findings highlight the need for a more comprehensive process for driving cessation in those with dementia, with closer links to regulatory bodies, and increased support for their families/carers.

This chapter addresses best practice for organisational support after critical incidents and traumatic events within social work. Critical incidents are situations and incidents within workplace settings or roles, which, whilst able to be anticipated and planned for, have the potential to create a sense of emergency, crisis, and extreme stress, or have a traumatic impact on those directly or indirectly affected. Alongside the notion of critical incidents are concepts of debriefing, psychological debriefing, Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD), and Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM). Debate about debriefing models has concerned their effectiveness and safety; the terms being loaded with meaning and tensions between scientific and holistic paradigms and between academic and practitioner perspectives. The chapter suggests areas of research and exploration for agency managers and senior practitioners wishing to make sense of the debates and enables the reader to consider best practice for critical incident response within organisational settings.

Yin noted the requirement for social workers to provide ‘supportive, empowering and strengths-based (resilience building) services’ and asked ‘when the workers themselves are burning out … do we provide the same for them?’. Many researchers have since explored this question, seeking explanations as to how some social workers survive and thrive and others are lost to the profession. The authors of this small exploratory study were interested in exploring practitioners’ understanding of resilience. A qualitative approach was employed to explore practitioner views about what contributed to their own resilience, augmented by data gathered in interviews with those providing supervision to students. Findings suggest a conceptual framework incorporating three aspects of resilience: core attributes within the individual, the practice context and a series of mediating factors. Participant accounts suggested a multifaceted and dynamically balanced awareness of resilience that highlighted the relational and contextu...

The supply of water following disasters has always been of significant concern within communities. Although water systems encompass physical components, a variety of social, economic, and organizational factors can affect their resilience to disasters. This paper proposes an innovative indicator-based resilience quantification model and utilizes a novel framework to identify the social variables affecting water supply resilience to disasters. The CARE model is utilized in this study to understand the building blocks of water supply system resilience to disasters. The relevant factors, indicators, and sub-indicators were gathered through a comprehensive literature review, verified and ranked through a series of interviews with water supply and resilience specialists, and social scientists and economists. The study identified seven indicators for the social attributes of communities that affect water supply resilience. The indicators are the Giving Index, homicide rate, assault rate, inverse trust in army, inverse trust in police, mean years of school, and perception of crime. These indicators were tested in Chile and New Zealand, which experienced earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 respectively. The proposed indicators were found to well explain the difference in water supply resilience between the two countries.

All health professions face numerous stressors within their clinical practice, including time pressures, workload, multiple roles and emotional issues. Frequent workplace stress can impact on the physical and mental wellbeing of health professionals and result in burnout and, in some cases, traumatic stress-like symptoms. These outcomes can impact not only on the wellbeing of health professionals but also on their ability to practise effectively. It is therefore imperative that a preventive approach is adopted. Developing resilience-promoting environments within the health professions can be explored as a means to reduce negative, and increase positive, outcomes of stress in health professionals. This literature review seeks to elucidate the processes and characteristics (both individual and contextual) that enhance resilience in the health professions. It explores relevant literature from five health professions (nursing, social work, psychology, counselling and medicine) to identify the individual and contextual resilience-enhancing qualities of each profession. Commonalities and differences between the disciplines are identified in order to arrive at a definitive explanation of resilience across health professions. Implications for clinical practice and recommendations for further research are also discussed.

Many social workers face challenges maintaining professional optimism and personal well-being in their chosen career. The retention of capable practitioners is important to employers and the wider profession. This paper reports on elements of an ongoing study into practitioner resilience in social work in health and non-statutory practice settings. The project aims to explore experienced social workers' understanding of their resilience in the face of workplace demands and stressors. Findings from a small, qualitative study of experienced practitioners in New Zealand suggest that social work education contributes in multi-faceted ways to preparing resilient practitioners. The authors recommend the strengthening of these elements in pre-service education.

Dr Carole Adamson is Programme Lead for Social Work and teaches in the School of Counselling, Human Services and Social Work at the University of Auckland, where her interests centre on stress, trauma and resilience, with a focus upon curriculum development and the growth of robust social work practitioners. Associate Professor Liz Beddoe, MA (Social Work), Ph.D., teaches in the School of Counselling, Human Services and Social Work at the University of Auckland. Liz’s interests include critical perspectives on social work education, professional supervision, the sociology of occupations, the professionalisation project of social work, learning discourses, interprofessional learning and practitioner research. Allyson Davys has over thirty years’ experience in the health and social service sector as a practitioner, supervisor, educator, academic and researcher with extensive experience of providing education and training in tertiary, work-based and community settings. She has a particular interest in supervision and interprofessional learning and is currently Head of School of Social Development at Waikato Institute of Technology.

This paper argues that the potential tensions within the role, function, and purpose of supervision, potentially magnified by the adoption of the process within a variety of organisational and occupational settings, underscore the importance of supervision being seen as a contextually informed activity. Supervision can be constructed as a professional development activity with processes of reflection that are potentially active contributors to practitioner resilience. It can also be viewed as a developmental tool that assists a worker adapt to the workplace context and to process environmentally located challenges and tensions. Within some workplaces, supervision has an active managerial and risk-management function. Using the lens of resilience theories, this paper addresses key issues for supervision emerging from its different functions and argues that in becoming aware of its contextual location in complex practice and organisational environments, supervision practice itself cannot remain pol...

How the social work profession supports people to live through experiences of trauma and helps to facilitate recovery represents an important base of our practice. Whilst the impacts of trauma in people's lives cannot be discounted, there remains significant scope to further inquire into how people respond to traumatic situations and locate their own sources of healing, hope and survival. Drawing on two different case studies—one with resettled Sudanese refugees in Australia and another involving critical incident debriefing—this paper looks to address the complex intersections between trauma, well-being and the roles of social work pedagogy and practice.

Social Work Under Pressure: How to Overcome Stress, Fatigue and Burnout in the Workplace Kate Van Heugten London, Jessica Kingsley, 2011 224 pp., ISBN 9781849051163, $36.95 (paperback) This text is...

This 16 chapter book represents a fresh, scholarly response to the imperative of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that the social work profession divests itself of...

The impact of traumatic events and the experience of psychological trauma have been depicted in myth, legend, art and literature throughout human history (for instance [1,2]). They have, for the last generation, been psychiatrically classified as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and as acute stress disorder (ASD). The papers in this In-Depth Review serve both to describe the status of current thinking in regard to the scientific conceptualization of psychological trauma and to raise questions in regard to our understanding of the contextualization of traumatic experience within occupational settings. For many years, occupational medicine and health and safety legislation has focused upon observable injury and illness caused by single events. These articles play a timely role in reminding us that many health and welfare concerns with far-reaching effects within organizational environments may be psychological, social and complex in nature and have enduring effects over a considerable span of time. In the first paper, Bisson [3] introduces the diagnostic categories of PTSD and ASD and presents an overview of the characteristics of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems [4,5], describing prevalence and risk factors in the development of traumatic symptoms. The variation in diagnostic features between these two classification systems serves to illustrate the ongoing development and refinement of our contemporary understanding of traumatic experience. Bisson signals our increasing awareness of resilience as opposed to the pathology of trauma. The concept of a resilience trajectory may challenge the reader to query whether employee resilience can be strengthened through processes of selection, screening and organizationally based support systems. These issues are addressed and developed in the following papers. While the first article focuses upon individual outcomes of treatment, Bisson suggests that individual prediction of risk is indeed a poor predictive tool and stresses that the degrees of support, connection and affirmation within the organizational context will contribute to recovery. Using the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health Guidelines for intervention (the development of which he played a significant part), Bisson briefly considers the viability of particular interventions. He signals the issues concerning early intervention in the workplace that the following articles then address. In particular, he stresses that the emotional component of single-session interventions termed as psychological debriefing (PD) should be avoided, suggesting that in many situations practical and pragmatic support provided by an informed peer group is both necessary and sufficient an intervention. Utilizing their extensive experience in Australia, McFarlane and Bryant [6] then focus specifically upon the impact of trauma in occupational settings acknowledging that individuals and groups within some occupations and workplaces experience higher risk factors than others. They introduce notions of cumulative risk and secondary stressors and suggest preventive or minimization strategies for the management of trauma within the workplace. Management strategies such as systematic assessment, reduction of exposure and rotation of duties are noted alongside the repetition of Bisson’s caution that there is inherent difficulty in providing accurate and ethical prediction of risk on an individual basis. They suggest that employers and supervisors nevertheless have a duty of care to identify and support those individuals adversely affected by traumatic events. The authors raise issues of legal and employer liability and financial compensation, a key factor in the ongoing debate about effective support for workers. Such risks are balanced against acknowledgement of the financial costs of providing support systems and the necessary cost-benefit analysis evaluation of any intervention adopted by an organization. They argue that early intervention or treatment to prevent further injury is crucial. The need for an evidence-based choice of intervention is stressed, an issue of particular importance in evaluation of PD and other structured interventions. Their acknowledgement of cumulative effects and potential sensitization to recurrent occupational stressors signals a need for occupational health practitioners to remain aware of the latest research in regard to complex PTSD and to constructivist interpretations of the relationship between cumulative stress and traumatic events. c/o School of Applied Psychosocial Studies, Faculty of Health and Social Work, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK.