Reimagining Social Work in AotearoaAn open letter appeal to social workers of Aotearoa New Zealand – A guest post by Luis Arevalo.
Kia Ora
For several years we have been advocating for the social work profession in this country to view climate change for what it is; an existential threat to life on earth, and as such start advocating for the cessation of those industries that, research shows, are the biggest producers of harmful gases that accelerate climate change.
First a disclaimer. I don’t pretend to be an expert on youth justice or residential care but as I mentioned many moons ago on this blog site – you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. I would like to say that the recent revelations suggesting sexually exploitive behaviour, young people breaking out to the roof of the Korowai Maanaki residence and video of cage-fight style violence apparently over-seen by staff is shocking and appalling. It is of course, but sadly I think that ‘predictable’ is a better descriptor.
Social workers, if we know anything, understand how systems – causes and consequences – are connected. At times of increased economic and social pressure it is those with the least who suffer the most in our system. Anecdotally I hear of rising demand for refuge from intimate partner violence and of increasingly strained resources. The shortage and unaffordability of decent housing continues to be a major problem in Auckland. The demand for emergency housing has been further stressed by the needs of families displaced by the floods and land-slips experienced over the bizarre Summer. Practitioners tell me about problems that they have little capacity to address. This is the rub, is it not?
We live in critical times. The unequal distribution of wealth and privilege (and the resulting unequal distribution of social suffering) continues to impact upon the stability of the world order. Arguably there is, at least, an increasing awareness of the social, economic, and environmental challenges which we are faced with collectively: as a planetary species. However, understandings of causes and solutions are, as always, contested. It is useful, I think, to attempt to unpack some of this complexity. Bear with me – I will return to what this unpacking may mean for progressive social work.
I have read the Ombudsman’s opinion in relation to Malachi Subecz. Like Emily Keddell I think there are some critical implications about the need to better manage and better fund the transition of our state child protection service. Change in child protection needs to be made with care simply because people get hurt in this work; more specifically children sometimes lose their lives. This does not mean reform is not needed. It is.
People wonder all the time why it is that child protection workers fail to identify and act on risk. How do mistakes that are so obvious in retrospect occur? The answer is that the reasons for this are mostly systemic. Child protection systems are complex and do not always behave rationally, at least not in the sense of clearly and consistently adhering to legally mandated procedures. Such systems are always applied within a political context and the perverse imperatives within the system are not always fully apparent to those who act within it. The disturbing thing for me is that this scenario is so familiar. I have seen this avoidant, minimalist, defensive practice before – in the 1990s. And many of the contextual drivers are the same.