Social work and political conflict: an examination of the literature on practice,

education and policy

Jim Campbell, Professor of Social Work, Department of Social, Therapeutic and Community Studies, Goldsmith, University of London

Mark Simpson, PhD Research Student, School of Law, University of Ulster

Introduction

– A relatively new area of study

– Challenges of definitions

– Methodology

– Emerging themes

– Looking to the future

– Discussion

A short history (early 1990s-)Northern Ireland

–Brewer (1991)–CCETSW (NI) 1993–Smyth and Campbell (1996)–CCETSW (1999)–Pinkerton and Campbell (2002)–Manktelow (2003)–Campbell and McCrystal (2005)–Houston (2008)

The work of the project at Queens: –Duffy and Campbell (2008) –Coulter et al (2011)–Duffy et al (2013) –Campbell et al (2013)

Other regions

Growth in interest from Israeli scholars and to a lesser extent those from other countries/regions

An edited book and two journal special issues:

–Ramon (ed) (2008)

–Basek and McDonald (BJSW, 2012)

–Ramon and Zavirsek (ISW, 2013)

Defining social work– The social work profession promotes social change,

problem solving in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance well-being. Utilising theories of human behaviour and social systems, social work intervenes at the points where people interact with their environments. Principles of human rights and social justice are fundamental to social work (IFSW/IAASW)

– Values

– Theories

– Practice

– Room for national/regional elaboration

Ongoing conflicts (International Alert)

External displacement

Internal displacement

Search (two stages: 2011, 2014)

– social work +political conflict

– social work +political violence

– social work +political unrest

– social work +political trauma

– social work +politics

– social work +violence

– social work +conflict

– Social Care Online– Social Services

Abstracts Social Sciences Citation Index Sociological Abstracts ASSIA

– PsychInfo – Google Scholar done– In addition to these

searches a ‘snowballing’ method was used to identify references used by authors in papers, books and other publications.

Location of outputs (n=62; 110 excluded)

– Israel (n=23)– Northern Ireland (n=16)– Africa (n=7)– Britain (n=6)– Palestine/middle east (3)– Former Jugoslavia (n=4)– Other (n=3)

Research approaches

Peer review articles:– Qualitative (n=12)– Cross sectional/mixed methods

(17)– Theory/Case Study (20)– No experimental studies

– Other (grey) (n=13)

Findings: Inter-related themes

Education

Impact on practice

Theorising

Interventions

Theme 1: The impact of political conflict upon social workers (n=12)Baum and Ramon (2010) Interviews with Jewish and Arab Israeli social workers to examine the concept of professional growth

Campbell and Healey (1999) Case study/biographical account of the impact of the Troubles on social work practice and personal identities

Adams et al (2007) A survey of social workers post 9/11 suggests levels of secondary trauma

Luc et al (2002) Survey findings indicate variable levels of PTSD amongst health and social care staff (including social workers) following the Omagh bomb in Northern Ireland

Theme 2: Interventions used by social workers (n=20)

Moshe Grodofsky (2011) An examination of social work narratives in the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict

Douchet and Denov (2012) In depth interviews with social workers who were supporting women and girls who experience gender based violence in Sierra Leone

Kreitzer and Lou (2010) Uses of reconciliation approaches by social workers in Rwanda

Campbell and McCrystal (2005) How mental health social workers responded to political conflict in Northern Ireland

Theme 3: Approaches to social work education and pedagogy (n=11)

– Coulter et al (2013) Evaluation of pedagogical approaches used to enable social work students to deal with the needs of victims and survivors in Northern Ireland

– Laird (2004) Exploration of new social work educational approaches to deal with the needs of populations in sub-Saharan Africa

– Nuttman-Schwartz and Dekel (2008) Evaluation of social work education programme to enable students to work with a ‘shared traumatic reality’ in Israel

– CCETSW (NI) (1999) Development of education and training approaches to deal with social work and sectarianism in Northern Ireland

Theme 4: Theorising (n=19) – Stubbs and Maglajlic (2012) Critical reflection of the

development of social work following the conflicts in south east Europe

– Noyoo (2004) Exploration of a human rights advocacy role for social workers in post-Apartheid South Africa

– Pinkerton and Campbell (2002), Houston (2008) Discussions about how the concept of social justice can be used to understand the role of social work in the Northern Irish conflict

– Cemlyn and Nye (2012) Examination of the role of UK social workers in dealing with the needs of asylum seeker young children

Some rhetorical questions

– Why does this subject seem relatively unimportant despite of the global impact of large scale and low level political conflicts?

– Is there a need for more conceptual clarity about the terms social work and political conflict?

– Why is the knowledge base so narrow?

– How can we reach other sites of conflict and forms of social work?

– How can we strengthen research methodologies?

Contact

j.campbell@gold.ac.uk