Reimagining Social Work in AotearoaA guest post by Mike O’Brien
The focus for the last few weeks has been on health (containing/eliminating the virus) and the economy – getting business going again. These priorities are what are seen to matter, even to the extent that last weekend one commentator argued that “the very basis of our society is business” (Sunday Start Times, April 12). Health matters, the economy matters, but is that all that matters?
It is hard to know where to begin – with the burdens carried by social workers in the present – or with the possibilities facing the planet in the longer run. There are numerous uncertainties surrounding the time of Covid-19 in Aoteraoa-New Zealand and across the globe. Social suffering is the stock-in-trade of social work and as suggested in previous posts such crises impact unevenly in structurally unequal societies such as ours. What might this mean now and into the future?
A social work colleague posted on social media a photo of her new home office. Her table and chair, laptop, a cat, some flowers and picture on the wall. I loved seeing this – especially in contrast to what I imagined to be her usual office – a vast grey room full of computers, generic desks and big unopenable windows. This portrait of her new space reflected who I know her to be, a woman committed to respectful, creative work with whānau.
A guest post by John Darroch
As we experience growing social and economic harm resulting from the coronavirus outbreak it may seem tempting to put political questions aside. After all, this is a human crisis, and one which requires immediate action. But the scale of this crisis, and the harm we are experiencing, is a result of our economic system. The fear and stress that we are feeling about losing our jobs, about not having sick leave, about paying our rent, are not individual crises. They are not crises caused by our individual actions. Nor are they the inevitable result of a global pandemic. This is a crisis of capitalism.
After the initial wave of confusion and uncertainty, the shape of the coronavirus response and the foreseeable ‘new normal’ is beginning to assume a clearer form. In A-NZ our working worlds and our wider lives are contracting at speed as we enter an indeterminate period of voluntary or enforced isolation. In such exceptional times we are apt to see the best and worst of human nature; in the behaviour of individuals, families, communities and governments. In Italy where the health system is over-run with demand, we see images of people singing in defiant solidarity from their locked-down balconies and doctors sent from far-flung socialist Cuba to help relieve the human tragedy.