Abstract This study explores the dynamics of indigenous tribal governance in Kerala, India, through a social work lens rooted in empowerment, cultural responsiveness, and social justice. “Social work praxis” in this article refers to the day-to-day involvement of social work practitioners in fostering active participation, rights-based decision-making, and culturally sensitive engagement with the indigenous community. The article is based on a qualitative research method with thirty-one participants from the Urali, Mannan, and Muthuvan communities in the Idukki and Pathanamthitta districts of Kerala and highlights the enduring relevance of traditional self-governance systems such as oorukoottams (village assemblies) and councils of elders. These institutions foster participatory decision-making, communal cohesion, and culturally grounded conflict resolution but lack formal legal authority. Their coexistence with modern local governance structures, such as Gram Panchayats introduced by the Panchayati Raj system, generates both collaboration and conflict. Development initiatives are often imposed without indigenous consent, eroding trust and customary rights. The research argues for strengthening recognition of indigenous governance, ensuring free, prior, and informed consent, and promoting power-sharing frameworks through community-based social work practice. The study advocates applying empowerment theory, anti-oppressive practice, and strengths-based approaches to support inclusive development with a systematic social work intervention.
Abstract In social work, dignity is usually considered as a person’s worth and what it demands. This can be drawn on to argue for the development of rights for people living with learning disabilities who experience exclusion and social disadvantage. However, normative ideas of flourishing can become a means of judging the worth of a life. When this happens, dignity becomes a status dependent on external criteria. Current approaches to dignity identify it with ideas of self-sovereignty. These disadvantages affect people living with learning disabilities, who are perceived as being vulnerable and lacking independence, reason, and autonomy. Drawing on Marion’s ideas of the Gaze, the object, and the saturated phenomenon, this article argues that status dignity needs to be distinguished from intrinsic dignity, and the dynamic between the two needs to be considered. This reveals how current approaches diminish worth and mask intrinsic dignity, a worth not dependent on attributes or circumstances. It illuminates the intimate tie among vulnerability, relational hope, and dignity. This facilitates a social work practice that witnesses the intrinsic dignity of people living with learning disabilities.
Abstract This study examines the pedagogical potential of virtual reality (VR) as an early exposure tool for introducing prospective social work learners to the emotional and ethical complexity of child-protection decision-making. Participants were eighteen 17-year-old students enrolled in a 1-week widening-participation Pathway Program at a UK university. The program was a pre-entry introduction to social work and did not constitute enrolment or guarantee progression. Learning activities were framed as orientation rather than preparation for practice, with an emphasis on ethical reflection and informed decision-making about future study. Using a crossover design, participants engaged with both a VR home-visit simulation and a text-based case report. Quantitative measures assessed empathy, preparedness, self-efficacy and cognitive load, while focus groups explored emotional engagement. Findings indicated significant increases in empathy and preparedness across both modalities, with no significant changes in self-efficacy or cognitive load. The VR experience consisted of a twenty-minute immersive simulation delivered through Meta Quest 2 headsets. Students reported that VR strengthened identification with the social work role and enhanced understanding of children’s perspectives, although some experienced technical difficulties and emotional intensity. The study supports inclusive pedagogies integrating immersive and traditional approaches to strengthen ethical awareness and early professional formation.
Despite the significant number of non-refoulement claimant (NRC) parents in Hong Kong, research on this population remains scarce. Established parenting theories may not fully capture the realities of marginalized population. Informed by the first author's decade of social work experience with NRC parents, this study adopts a phenomenological lens to apprehend the originary appearance of NRC parenting during their sojourn in Hong Kong. Heideggerian interpretive phenomenological approach was adopted. Twelve NRC parents from five different countries of origin were interviewed between June to July 2023. Data were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis complemented by reflective methods to theme analysis. Analysis revealed five key themes: (1) competing deprivation with guilt and shame, (2) drifting in sojourn, (3) grounding in the immediacy of life, (4) coping with loneliness through parenting, and (5) enduring hope in parenting. The meanings of the act of parenting which endures connections, hopes, and life meanings were also captured. The meaning-centered and temporal facets of NRC parents' parenting experiences suggest that parenting theories should place greater emphasis on these existential dimensions. It further recommends integrating these facets into social work practice to ensure greater depth and clinical relevance. How do parents raise children when drifting in sojourn and living in a situation full of limitations and without foreseeable future? The current Heideggerian phenomenological study with non-refoulement claimant (NRC) parents in Hong Kong reveals how deprivation, drifting, purposelessness, loneliness, and hopelessness in the journey turn to connection, hope, and meaning through the act of parenting. The findings enrich dominant parenting theories and inform practice by incorporating existential dimensions, including the meanings and temporality of parenting.
This study investigates the vulnerabilities arising from refugees' legal and social status in T & uuml;rkiye, focusing on barriers to accessing social assistance, care, protection, and shelter services. Using an intersectionality framework, it examines how overlapping identities and systemic obstacles compound refugees' marginalization and exacerbate their vulnerabilities within social service provision. This study employs a phenomenological approach within qualitative research to explore the experiences of professionals working with refugee populations in T & uuml;rkiye. Data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews with thirty-three professionals selected via purposive and snowball sampling methods across six different cities in T & uuml;rkiye. Three main themes emerged through thematic analysis of the qualitative data. The findings show that refugees' access to services in T & uuml;rkiye is shaped by legal status, nationality, gender, age, and disability, resulting in unequal access to rights. Despite the expansion of social assistance mechanisms, structural barriers persist; additionally, social assistance programs lack an intersectional approach and remain largely family-oriented. Furthermore, fragmented and limited provision of care, protection, and shelter services further deepens vulnerability, particularly among women, children, persons with disabilities, and older refugees. When refugees flee to Turkey seeking safety, they often find themselves trapped in a system that creates new forms of vulnerability rather than providing protection. This study examined how Turkey's social services work for refugees by interviewing thirty-three professionals who provide support across six Turkish cities. The researchers discovered that access to essential services like healthcare, housing assistance, and protection depends heavily on factors beyond refugees' control, including their country of origin, legal status, gender, age, and disability. The study reveals a troubling pattern: Turkey's assistance programs often work against refugees' long-term well-being. For example, when refugees find jobs, they immediately lose financial aid, forcing many to work illegally for low wages instead of pursuing legal employment. Syrian refugees receive different treatment from Afghan or Iranian refugees, creating divisions and inequality. Women, children, elderly people, and those with disabilities face additional barriers, while single men and sexual orientation and gender identity minorities are often excluded entirely. Rather than providing a safety net, Turkey's current system creates what researchers call a "hierarchy of vulnerability," where some refugees are deemed more deserving of help than others. The findings suggest that structural changes to social services are urgently needed to ensure all refugees can access the support they need to rebuild their lives safely.
The assessment of 'risk' using standardized tools has become commonplace in social work roles across most human service organizations internationally. Despite the critiques of risk assessment tools as sustaining the status quo and disguising social oppressions, they continue to be applied by social workers to marginalized populations. This article presents the findings from a systematic analysis of the juvenile justice risk assessment tool, the Youth Level of Service Inventory-Australian Adapted version, used in NSW, Australia. Drawing on concepts from critical race scholarship and governmentality studies, this analysis found that constructions of the tool as 'neutral' and 'scientific' function to produce specific types of subjects and conceal the racist and classist discourses that underlie risk assessment tools. This article contributes to social work knowledge in the field of youth justice, as well as social work more broadly, as it encourages a serious reconsideration of the taken-for-granted discourses that operate within standardized assessment tools and promotes ways to make space for alternative and socially just practices. This article looks at how risk assessment tools used in youth justice-specifically the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory-Australian Adapted-can unfairly target certain groups of young people, especially racialized children. The article explains the popular use of this tool in youth justice settings and how the tool was developed, turning then to the critical scholarship surrounding risk assessment tools. To build on this critical research, we analysed the tool using Bacchi's 'What's the problem represented to be?' (WPR) approach and our findings of this analysis demonstrate how the tool centralizes the family in the process of 'becoming' criminal, how the risk assessment tool disguises the intersection of racial and economic inequalities, and how the risk assessment tool shuts down the possibility of racist structures. This analysis shows that although these tools are represented as neutral and scientific, they also reflect hidden biases about race, class, and family life. The article calls for social workers to rethink the use of these tools and for social work to make space for more just and inclusive practices that reflect the lives and histories of the young people they work with.
Young people facing mental health difficulties and co-occurring challenges often receive support across multiple services, where coordination and continuity can be difficult to realize. Youth Flexible Assertive Community Treatment (Youth Flexible ACT) is a multidisciplinary, team-based model designed to provide coordinated, outreach-oriented, and flexible follow-up over time. This qualitative study explored how young people in Norway described what made the Youth Flexible ACT follow-up feel coherent and workable. Nine young people aged sixteen to twenty-two years were recruited through three Youth Flexible ACT teams and interviewed using a semi-structured guide. Data were analysed using Systematic Text Condensation. Participants described support as most helpful when it felt connected, predictable, and relationally safe. Prepared meetings, transparent communication, shared planning, and clear next steps strengthened coherence. Flexibility supported manageability when paired with reliability, but became a vulnerability when availability was unclear or changes were abrupt. The findings show that, in social work and related youth services, coordination becomes meaningful through everyday micro-situations where support is made predictable, understandable, and relationally safe. When support comes from several services, young people often describe having to repeat their story, not knowing who is responsible, and feeling anxious when plans change without warning. Youth Flexible Assertive Community Treatment (Youth Flexible ACT) aims to reduce this through team-based, flexible follow-up across everyday arenas and over time. In interviews with nine young people receiving Youth Flexible ACT support, participants described help as working when it felt connected, predictable, and respectful. They valued prepared meetings, clear explanations of who would do what, and follow-up with agreed next steps. Flexibility was appreciated when it made life easier but felt unsafe when availability was unclear or contact suddenly stopped. Team-based follow-up mattered when it reduced the need to repeat one's story and made support less fragile. This article shows how integrated support becomes meaningful for young people in everyday moments of communication, reliability, and respect.
Digital technology plays a vital role in improving social work services at Vietnam's hospitals. This qualitative study explored the experiences, processes, and influencing factors of digital technology use for critically ill patients at several hospitals in Vietnam. Thirty-nine in-depth interviews and six focus group discussions revealed that the surveyed hospitals did not effectively integrate digital technology into services like information consultation, resource mobilization, and psychological support for critically ill patients, often leading to reliance on informal digital workarounds. However, digital technology was found to be effectively integrated into communication and health education services for this patient population. Viewed through an anti-oppressive practice (AOP) lens, the study identified factors hindering digital adoption, particularly the dominant biomedical model and practitioners' lack of digital clinical competence, and proposed recommendations for relevant stakeholders. These findings provide crucial evidence for global policy advocacy, highlighting the importance of using digital technology to ensure transparent, ethical, and effective social work service delivery to critically ill patients. To address existing structural disparities, future research should employ comparative case studies and participatory action research (PAR) to co-design affordable digital tools for lower-resource settings. This study examines the integration of digital technology in Vietnamese hospital social work. While digital platforms effectively support health education, significant gaps remain in specialized services for critically ill patients. The findings offer crucial evidence for policy advocacy and digital transformation in global healthcare settings.
With the rapid advancement of technology in social work education, there is an increasing need for students to develop relational competencies within technology-mediated learning environments. This is particularly significant in collectivist cultures across Asia, where interpersonal relationships, community values, and social harmony are central to social work practice and education. This scoping review maps existing studies on technology use in social work education and examines how relational competencies are integrated within these contexts. A comprehensive search was conducted across five databases, resulting in nineteen articles that capture social work educators' and students' perspectives on how technological tools both enhance and constrain the development of relational competencies. Using thematic analysis, we identified four key themes: (1) benefits and advantages, (2) gaps in relational learning, (3) the centrality of intentional pedagogies, and (4) the role of educators and learners in fostering relational learning. This review employs the 'third space theory' to introduce the Reflectivity, Intentionality, Competency, Co-production, Adaptability framework, which comprises five essential components: reflectivity, intentionality, competency, co-production, and adaptability. These elements collectively underscore the pivotal role of educators and provide practical guidance for addressing the identified gaps and enhancing relational learning. While technology offers clear advantages in social work education, its impact on relational competencies requires careful consideration and intentional pedagogical approaches. Educators must be well-prepared, adaptable, reflective, and deliberate in their use of technological tools to enhance students' relational skills. This is particularly important in collectivist cultural contexts, where interpersonal relationships and community values are central.
