Ecosocial Work Research Articles

A szociális munka és a természeti környezet találkozási pontjai

The aim of my study is to examine the appearance of ecology and natural environment in thetheory and practice of social work. By reviewing international literature, my aim is to review andsystematize basic theories and professional directions. I also consider it important to look at theHungarian aspects. Global environmental changes and social changes interact, and the socialwork profession evolves, and incudes new trends and approaches while reflecting ever-changingchallenges. The relationship between the person and his/her environment has always been oneof the central themes of social work, but the pursuit of sustainability and the focus on the naturalenvironment may bring a new dimension to the interpretation of the person-in-environmentapproach. In my paper, I attempt to understand the values and motivations of ‘green social work’,‘environmental social work’ and ‘eco-social work’ and I attempt to understand the relationshipbetween social work and the natural environment, and examine the roles social workers maycarry on related to the global environmental changes.

Storytelling and Arts to Facilitate Community Capacity Building for Urban Planning and Social Work

Creating social connections and fostering engagement in communities is a growing challenge for community work. Planners, social workers, and community activists are starting to look towards the arts and storytelling as a way to promote community capacity. A community in Lopez Island, Washington, facing sustainable housing and agricultural issues brought in a two-day storytelling and theatre program to build capacity for their ecosocial work. This research describes facilitator engagement methodology and pilots a community capacity survey to evaluate the experience of workshop participants. Preliminary results show that the storytelling program makes strides in deepening connections to others and generating authentic dialogue. Participants reported both positive experiences of building trust and negative feelings of vulnerability. As funding can be a major barrier for community groups to incorporate arts programs, this research introduces a preliminary survey that communities can adapt and improve upon to help them start gathering evidence-based data for assessing measures of community capacity. Though the facilitators brought unique theatrical and choreographic skills to the programming, planners and social workers can take away for practice a simple storytelling exercise that participants enthusiastically expressed fostered listening, trust, and connection.

Raising awareness of transformative ecosocial work: Participatory action research with Australian practitioners

This article reports on Participatory Action Research with social work practitioners who collaboratively explored the effects on professional practice when practitioners raise their awareness of an ecosocial work approach. Although contemporary research in the profession has contributed to the ongoing development of ecosocial work, there is a notable lack of collaboration with social work practitioners. Using a transformative ecosocial work model of practice, researchers together with social workers from a range of practice contexts met as co‐inquirers to plan, implement and evaluate ecosocial work interventions. As part of a larger international study, this article reports on research outcomes within the Australian context. Overall, results indicate that practitioners incorporated interventions across personal, individual, group and organisational levels of practice, but were constrained by structural elements at broader levels. Continuing the development of ecosocial work requires further collaborative exploration with practitioners, which takes into consideration communities and broader social and political systems.Key Practitioner Messages: • This research endeavours to contribute to the evidence‐base for progressing transformative ecosocial work in professional practice; • Using Participatory Action Research (PAR), this research was done in collaboration with social work practitioners as co‐inquirers to develop ecosocial work interventions; • A range of ecosocial work interventions were implemented at the personal, individual, group and organisational levels.

Theoretical frameworks in social work education: a scoping review

ABSTRACT Social work education now operates within a complex array of higher education imperatives while the practice context has changed to adapt to a culture with an emphasis on technical and instrumental approaches. In response, one Australian social work program has embarked on a curriculum redesign project to incorporate a consistent theoretical framework across the whole program. This paper presents the results of a scoping review, which aimed to inform the redesign by the identification of theoretical orientations of other social work programs. Anti-oppressive, critical and postmodern, critical race, First Nations and eco-social work frames dominated the literature. Positive psychological theories to support graduate resilience were present, as were a small number of systems frameworks. The analysis identified the relevance and importance of the ‘implicit curriculum’ concept that brings attention to the organizational cultures in which learning takes place. The multitude of conceptual papers compared to the dearth of implementation and evaluation papers may suggest institutional barriers to the implementation of whole curriculum theoretical frameworks. More implementation research is needed to better inform coherent theoretical orientations for social work education.

Ecosocial work through corporate social responsibility: the case of company engagement with civil society in coastal communities in Mauritius

ABSTRACTThis article presents a case study of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in coastal areas of Mauritius where company CSR work has brought new ways of engaging with communities. The study examines in what ways companies are involved in ecosocial work and what the challenges and possibilities are from an environmental justice perspective. Based on interviews with representatives of companies and other organizations involved with CSR the study shows that CSR involvement in ecosocial work may bring possibilities for advancing environmental justice for local communities as it can enhance resources and capacity building, as well as bring actors together and play a role in advocacy and empowerment work. Challenges include that companies may have difficulties in contributing to greater justice in terms of community involvement. Moreover, inequalities and substantial environmental justice issues, such as access to land and safe housing, are difficult to fully address through a CSR framework.

“Mining is like a search and destroy mission”: The case of Silver City

ABSTRACTWhile mines are often thought of as a driving force for development, this may not be the case due to power discrepancies between companies and local communities, as well as lack of protection provided by the government. In response, communities have begun to challenge mining companies. The industry itself has countered by developing negotiation techniques to gain local support. This study contributes to the literature on mining and ecosocial work practice, by drawing on the case of Silver City Nevada, where the broad consensus in the community is that the positive local-level impact of mining activities is negligible.

Integrating youth participation and ecosocial work: New possibilities to advance environmental and social justice

ABSTRACTThis article reveals possibilities to expand the role of youth within ecosocial work practice. The Where I Stand Youth Summit held in Chicago, Illinois, provided a safe space for young people to reflect upon their understanding of, and roles within, social and environmental justice movements. Drawing upon critical youth empowerment theory and participant observation, we note that youth shared experiences of oppression across unique social identities, while displaying authentic communication, acceptance, and desire for solidarity. Re-defining what knowledge matters, along with intention and self-restoration, also emerged as critical to building young people’s agency and power to effect social change.

Ecosocial change and community resilience: The case of “Bönan” in glocal transition

ABSTRACTThe aim of this article was to identify and discuss ecosocial changes and community resilience mechanisms in a coastal fishing community of Sweden – Bönan. Data were collected through eight semi-structured interviews and field observations. An abductive thematic analysis was used to analyze data and background literature. The findings showed that Bönan has been exposed to a combination of ecosocial changes that have transformed the community, and therefore required community resilience interventions. This article concludes that social workers need to take an active part in ecosocial work for enhancing community resilience.

Preparing social workers for ecosocial work practice and community building

ABSTRACTIn the context of the global ecological crisis, the profession of social work is increasingly shifting to embrace an ecosocial lens, recognizing the centrality of the ecological environment for human existence and the inextricable linkages of wellbeing for people and planet. Social work educators are contributing to this shift as leaders in the transformation of their home institutions and communities. We present examples within two models of education for ecosocial work, the infusion model and the integration model. Exemplars are based on the authors’ expertise and contributions to ecosocial work education, community building, and ecosocial change, both locally and globally.

“Let’s talk about the real issue”: Localized perceptions of environment and implications for ecosocial work practice

ABSTRACTThis interpretive study investigated how residents from socioeconomically challenged communities in North St. Louis understand and make meaning of environmental change and its impact on their well-being. Based on these localized data, we argue that racial minorities facing socioeconomic challenges may experience some environmental issues as less of an immediate concern than violence and racism. However, race and racism shape both the realities of environmental threats as well as residents’ perceptions about environmental injustice in their communities. This study informs ecosocial work practices such as educating communities on local environmental issues and mobilizing community members toward environmental decision-making.

Collective survival strategies and anti-colonial practice in ecosocial work

ABSTRACTOppressed communities have long used strategies of caring for and protecting each other to ensure their collective survival. We argue for ecosocial workers to critically interrogate how agency, history, and culture structure environmental problems and our responses to them, by developing a resilience-based framework, collective survival strategies (CSS). CSS consider power, culture and history and build upon the strengths of oppressed communities facing global environmental changes. We challenge the dominant narrative of climate change as a “new” problem and connect it to colonization. We discuss implications by examining a social work program explicitly built on Indigenous knowledges and anti-colonial practice.

The future of environmental social work: Looking to community initiatives for models of prevention

ABSTRACTSocial work responses to environmental degradation have sought to mitigate harm that has already occurred and create strategies to respond or adapt to environmental hazards. Despite a good deal of literature suggesting the promise of prevention-focused models, social workers have less frequently considered prevention models to address environmental issues. In this manuscript, we consider how communities engaged in environmentally-based prevention work might inform the development of ecosocial work practice. We describe how a prevention-focused agenda, in partnership with communities, can be a promising avenue for ecosocial work practice to address the root causes of environmental degradation and its social impacts.

“Todo ha sido a pulmón”: Community organizing after disaster in Puerto Rico

ABSTRACTIn this Notes from the Field, we highlight the work of community based organizations that filled essential gaps in the disaster recovery efforts in Puerto Rico for communities that were heavily damaged by Hurricane Maria yet received little formal government aid. We describe community mobilizing and organizing efforts and identify key lessons for eco-social work practice. As disaster risk increases with climate change, community led efforts are likely to prove vital for the effective protection of the most vulnerable population groups.

Environmental Decline, Loss, and Biophilia

In exploring our personal sense of loss as a response to environmental decline, this article outlines several dimensions of this experience (guilt, shame, helplessness, anxiety, environmental disequilibrium, environmental trauma, cosmological loneliness), and traces promising healing responses in the health professions and ecosocial work. Focusing on a public educational empowerment model, the article proposes E. O. Wilson’s notion of “biophilia” – an innate attraction to life and to affiliate with living things - as a basis for a model of practice. This educational approach uses biophilia and ecological narratives as a foundation for deepening personal motivation for sustained action in environmental citizenship.

The Practical Realities of Ecosocial Work

The following article examines contemporary literary opinion on the link between social and environmental justice. It argues that social work’s historical adherence to the notion of person-in-environment that is, person-in-social environment, has meant that environmental justice has not been widely realised in practice. Literature is drawn on to highlight the link between social and environmental justice and the relevance of environmental justice to social work practice. The author calls for additional debate on the merit of social work practice that realises the link between social and environmental justice and moreover, further research into how this link can be realised in practice.

Advancing Transformative Eco-social Change: Shifting from Modernist to Holistic Foundations

ABSTRACTThis paper proposes a reconciliatory, integrative, and transformative way forward for addressing philosophical incongruities between the emerging foundations of eco-social work and inherent modernist assumptions underpinning conventional social work practice. Although modernity has enabled the profession to pursue certain freedoms, such as individual empowerment and self-determination, a modernist worldview is today critiqued for philosophical assumptions associated with the unsustainable use of Earth’s natural resources. By advancing transformative eco-social change, opportunities to broaden the profession’s conventional philosophical base to include holism and interdependence with the natural world will be explored. Implications centre on the need to incorporate perspective transformation and critical reflexivity, and to revise the framing of fundamental documents, such as codes of ethics, practice standards, and education requirements. By integrating transformative eco-social change, social work can improve the capacity to develop a coherent and ethical response to ecological and social problems.

Social Work and the Natural Environment: Embedding Content Across Curricula

ABSTRACTSocial work is a profession focused on people within their environments. This is reflected in codes of ethics, where our shared mandate is to work towards individual wellbeing and social change. Recently, social work literature has promoted green and eco-social work, drawing on climate change science, notions of expanded and future justice, knowledge of the link between health and the environment, and principles of deep ecology. However, if social workers are to take up their place in a rapidly changing, globalised world, rife with environmental concerns, their education must prepare them to do this. One way of doing this is to embed curriculum on social work in relation to the natural environment in already existing units. This paper describes two examples of how this could be done based on the authors’ experiences from their respective universities.IMPLICATIONSIt is incumbent on social work to respond to the mounting evidence related to the environmental crisis.Social work is well placed in terms of theory, values, and skills to lead the way in developing an eco-social paradigm of potential relevance across disciplines.Social work educators need to educate students about emerging issues, such as environmental degradation. Embedding material in already existing courses, as per examples provided in this paper, provides one way of doing this.

Eco-social Work in Action: A Place for Community Gardens

ABSTRACTIn this paper, the authors theorise on eco-social work, an emerging descriptor for practices located at the intersection of social work and eco-justice. It presents a collaborative auto-ethnographic study undertaken by three social work academics that addressed the question: In what ways can community gardens be sites for eco-social work practice? The question was premised on the idea that community gardens are often recognised as sites for practising sustainability. An action learning research framework guided a process in and with three different community gardens. Specifically, this paper highlights practices that suggest community gardens are spaces for social work practice including: resistance to the dominant discourses of hyper-capitalism and consumerism; the building of trust and cooperation in relationships; and the development of egalitarian relationships between people and, ultimately, all elements of the natural realm. The findings suggest that community gardens can be spaces for practising eco-social work.IMPLICATIONSCommunity gardens are spaces where eco-social workers can develop their understanding of eco-justice and challenge unsustainability.Social workers, working across a range of practice fields can engage professionally with community gardens.Community gardens provide a context where egalitarian, cooperative, and trusting social work practice can take place.

Eco-social work and community resilience: Insights from water activism in Canada

Summary Only recently has social work begun to grapple with its place in relation to environmental issues. While considerable progress has been made in bringing environmental considerations into the centre of our profession's scholarship and practice, this project is far from complete. Drawing on environmental literature and based on findings of a qualitative case study of water activism in one Canadian city, this paper argues that the concept of “community resilience” provides both a practical and a conceptual framework for advancing social work's engagement with issues of the natural environment and environmental justice through community praxis. Findings In Guelph, Ontario, Canada, water issues are the focal point of considerable community activism. The case study research reveals, however, that while water is the focus, much of this activism is driven by three broad social priorities that reflect ideas of community resilience and which suggest entry points for social work participation in community-based environmental initiatives: self-reliance and sustainability, localization and direct citizen participation, and community. Applications “Community resilience” is increasingly popular in environmental and community development fields as a conceptual framework for assessing and building the capacity of communities to support wellbeing in the face of environmental change, adversity and risk. While the concept of “resilience” is well established in social work, “community resilience” remains under-examined in social work literature. In this paper, the author draws attention to this arena of resilience thinking, highlighting its potential for the integration of considerations of the natural environment into social work scholarship, education, and practice.

Environmental Sustainability and Social Work: A Rural Australian Evaluation of Incorporating Eco-Social Work in Field Education

Climate change poses significant threat to the wellbeing of global society. Addressing this change has as yet generated no fixed blueprint for social work practice and education. This paper reports on a formative evaluation of one Australian initiative to address this transformative opening in social work field education. Prompted by service users' and workers' experience of the impact of drought, a rurally located social work course team amended the field education curriculum to include a focus on Environment and Sustainability. This learning goal was added to the existing learning goals derived from the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) Practice Standards. Students and field supervisors were surveyed on their experience of meeting this new learning goal. While most expressed confidence in understanding the concepts involved, they clearly lacked assurance in interpreting these in practice encounters. Considering their qualitative input suggests that this topic is making a transition from being on the margins of social work to becoming mainstream. Their open-ended responses indicate that the incorporation of environmental sustainability into practice is at a threshold stage of development. Further enactment of eco-social work at the local level is concluded to be supported by using a transformative learning framework in facilitating critical reflection and collaborative dialogue for effective change.