Journals Information
International Journal of Social Work and Human Services Practice(CEASE PUBLICATION) Vol. 2(3), pp. 96 - 100
DOI: 10.13189/ijrh.2014.020307
Reprint (PDF) (181Kb)
Community Development: The Way Forward for Social Work in Disaster Management. Critical Essay
Jennifer Woods *
Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Australia
ABSTRACT
Community development is the way forward for social work. Economic rationalism, smaller governments and possible climate changes mean more crises and less state resources, urbanisation means more densely populated communities, especially in coastal zones and adjacent waterways and coupled together, an increased need for social work interventions. Certainly, using readily available resources and preparing for potential negative events makes community development an ethical and appropriate means of dealing with issues of community for social workers. Even for disaster management where social work has been traditionally located at the crisis stage in a role of assisting with psychological stress there lies an opportunity to focus more in the community development context, not only utilising available social capital for recovery but for assisting with building capacity and thus creating solid foundations for the future of the community. The recent edited book, Community Work: Theories, Experiences and Challenge (Goel, Pulla and Francis, 2014) provides a compilation of many relevant articles that explore the concept of community development and the way in which social workers can embrace this framework for ethical service provision in contemporary Australian communities. A recent paper by Rowlands (2013) reiterates the ability of social work to work at the nexus between communities and governments in disaster management to adopt a community development approach which not only enables communities to move forward but empowers the community to assist itself. A community development approach involving social work underpinned with resilience and strengths based theories allows for ethical, professional practice within AASW guidelines that enables communities to grow and thrive as well as survive disasters of the future.
KEYWORDS
Community Development, Resilience, Strengths Based, Disaster Management
Cite This Paper in IEEE or APA Citation Styles
(a). IEEE Format:
[1] Jennifer Woods , "Community Development: The Way Forward for Social Work in Disaster Management. Critical Essay," International Journal of Social Work and Human Services Practice(CEASE PUBLICATION), Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 96 - 100, 2014. DOI: 10.13189/ijrh.2014.020307.
(b). APA Format:
Jennifer Woods (2014). Community Development: The Way Forward for Social Work in Disaster Management. Critical Essay. International Journal of Social Work and Human Services Practice(CEASE PUBLICATION), 2(3), 96 - 100. DOI: 10.13189/ijrh.2014.020307.