FACULTY OF HEALTH AND SOCIETY | Seminar
Climate change and disaster management - social work within the disaster sector

Welcome to the Seminar with Lisa Ewenson

Welcome to the Seminar with Lisa Ewenson a researcher within the HowWeSurvive initiative at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Abstract

A land of bushfires, cyclones, floods and droughts. Climate change and disaster management across Australia–strengthening the recognition of social work within the disaster sector.

Climate change-accelerated disasters are increasingly frequent and severe across Australia. At the same time, social workers are undervalued within the disaster sector.

While social workers make significant contributions across Australia in a range of disaster contexts within, and alongside, strong multidisciplinary teams, the explicit social and climate justice, human rights-based, and trauma-informed expertise and practice that social workers bring to the disaster sector is often under-recognised.

Disasters emerge out of the deeply imbalanced power relations and systems enmeshed within our social and environmental fabric, and social workers, already working in long-term roles alongside marginalised communities, have expertise which can help communities shift power and resources in these contexts.

This presentation will explore preliminary findings from the Social Workers and Disaster Management Across Australia research project (UNSW HREC#7331). This research aims to improve the understanding and recognition of social work within the disaster sector across Australia, and builds upon, with generous collegial support, the disaster focused research of social workers A/Professor Kathryn Hay and Dr Katheryn Margaret Pascoe of Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Phase Four of this project is a case study process where social workers, with the Chief Investigator (Lisa Ewenson), will co-produce and document case studies exploring their varied (the social workers') experiences of climate change-accelerated disaster work (as related either directly or indirectly) across Australia.

Chairman

Carin Cuadra, professor, Institutionen för socialt arbete, Malmö universitet

Practical information

You are welcome to participate in the seminar on site in Niagara. If you are an external participant, you need to register at carin.cuadra@mau.se no later than the day before the seminar, as access cards are required to enter the hall.