Learning from our past: climate change and disaster interventions in practice

Abstract

Social work has a lengthy history of intervening in disaster situations – natural and human-made, especially in philanthropic work with faith-based organisations and individuals. This changed with institutional forms of solidarity enshrined in the welfare state following World War 2. These impulses were coupled with the formation of the United Nations and its affiliated bodies, formed to rebuild a war-devastated Europe. These now have a remit to respond to any humanitarian disaster anywhere. In this chapter, I describe these developments, and include how the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) also became involved in such initiatives, highlighting the creation of co-produced solutions in locality-specific culturally relevant ways through community partnerships that include the social sciences like social work working alongside the physical sciences. I also argue that disaster interventions should form part of mainstream social work curricula and that humanitarian aid workers should have a social work qualification.