Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Social work with refugees in the First Reception and Identification Centres in Greece includes many challenges and peculiarities. In an emergency setting, without the necessary tools, often without the necessary space, social workers are called upon to provide quality services, deal with crises and solve problems by combining assistance to the individual with the protection of the whole camp population. In this chapter we will focus on the work of the social workers in the RIC of Samos as it emerged from the research of the European Research Council ChildMove project.
During the refugee crisis (2015–today), social workers have been in the frontline of a contradictory context of repressive migration policies and their value quest for anti-oppressive practice. This chapter will focus on social work education, discussing the need to undertake a more political and activist approach based on the critical and anti-oppressive values of the profession. The discussion is informed by a collaborative intercultural project between students and staff on migration, everyday bordering and (anti-)oppressive social work practices. The project involved MA social work students from a university in the North East of England, organising a series of events aimed at raising awareness and crowdfunding in relation to the refugee crisis. In addition to this a group of students and two lecturers went on a study trip to Athens, Greece, where they debated the concepts of human rights and social justice with frontline professionals, refugee activists and social work students to develop understandings of social work across international boundaries and contexts of practice. This experience was used as an opportunity for reflection, co-learning and anti-oppressive praxis by students and staff, revealing the thriving opportunity for social work education to be the space for activism and critical consciousness at local and (inter)national contexts.
This book intends to identify the reality of migration and asylum in Europe through the lenses of the research done by social work academics from nine different countries. Along its 11 chapters a true European perspective is also provided and many questions arise regarding the role of social work research at practitioner level, at academic level and at political level.
This chapter explores the narratives of teenage girls who arrived in Sweden between 2014 and 2017 seeking refuge. Their stories of integration through existential struggles relating to rights, identity and belonging stand in contrast to a Swedish integration discourse that emphasises labour market integration. The girls question how their process of integration is framed, as circumstances beyond their control impact on their chances of staying in Sweden. In different ways they argue against how their personal struggles are disregarded leaving them without recognition and support. The chapter highlights the discrepancy between a general integration discourse that conceptualise integration as individual achievements and integration as it is reflected upon by the girls themselves.
With cross-cultural perspectives from contributors in nine countries, this book showcases much-needed research on current issues around migration and social work in Europe. Focusing on the reception, experiences and integration of refugees and asylum seekers, the chapters also consider the impact of recent EU policies on borders and integration.
With racism on the rise in some European societies, the book foregrounds international social work values as a common framework to face discriminatory practice at macro and micro-levels. Featuring recommendations for inclusive practice that ‘opens doors’, this book features the voices of migrants and the practitioners aiding their inclusion in new societies.
As human beings, people in need should have the right to access services and support to improve their living conditions, irrespective of their backgrounds. However, in reality, practising this principle is often ridden with complexity; therefore, social work organisations continue to grapple with the problem of accessibility towards ethnic minorities. Research and practice reveal that the accessibility of social work practices and social work organisations for ethnic minorities depends on several objective and subjective factors. These factors impose different responsibilities on social workers and organisations at the political and managerial levels of the welfare system. Considering the Italian social work context, this study uses the metaphor of the door-closing and door-opening movements within the welfare system to show how the former prevents, discourages or limits the access of ethnic minorities to the required support, while the latter facilitates them in navigating the system.
In recent years, several art projects have addressed the issue of migration, which is a relevant social work topic. Yet social workers are often part of the machinery of securitisation and bureaucratisation of the social field, even though they formulate their work primarily in the discourse of ‘helping’. They often see migration as a problem of nation-state protection and not as a human rights issue. The question raised in this chapter is whether social workers, including social work students in countries with extreme refugee hostility, might become more engaged with the problems of migration through the use of critical art. Participatory art does not moralise or lecture, but is a way of identification, of emotionally grasping what is very far from the experience of students and social workers, and can therefore sharpen their epistemological flexibility and strengthen their humanistic perspective despite mainstream nationalisms. In the post-socialist countries of Southeast Europe, social work and politics have become conflated, and social workers have very limited capacity to think critically and advocate for a ‘new state’. The use of participatory art could connect critical social work with the engaged and action-oriented practice of social work in the field of migration in a transdisciplinary way.
This chapter explores the social work role in the Republic of Ireland in relation to children and families from a forced migration background. It starts by setting the context through a discussion about social work generally, before discussing social work’s role with four different, though interlinked, groups of refugees: families who arrive independently/‘spontaneously’ and seek asylum or international protection; refugees who arrive through organised government resettlement or relocation schemes; unaccompanied minors who arrive through one of the aforementioned routes and who are placed in the care of the state child welfare and protection agency; and people who arrive to be reunited with refugee family members who are already in Ireland. The chapter draws on both Irish and international research to highlight that while social work has a central role in the provision of care and support to unaccompanied minors, the role of social work vis-à-vis the other cohorts has been limited, largely reflecting the general lack of support provided to most refugee groups within the Irish context. It is argued that as Ireland’s international protection system changes in the coming years, the social work profession – if sufficiently resourced – has the capacity to position itself centrally, not only in the provision of services to people from a forced migration background, but also in shaping policy development and research agendas.
Working with cultural diversity, and specifically asylum seekers and refugees, is an emerging field of practice in Scottish social work, little covered in social work education. This chapter explores approaches to the integration of migrants broadly and specifically within Scotland. The chapter is contextualised within cultural social work, working with difference, and developing a sense of place and wellbeing to achieve sustainable and inclusive cities. The Indicators of Integration Framework (Ager and Strang, 2004), a relational approach to integration, and the Capability Approach (CA) (Sen, 1999) are used to frame and conceptualise the work. Some of the challenges and tensions that are emerging within Scottish social work with asylum seekers and refugees are discussed, these include: (1) balancing working with UK government immigration legislation and Scottish welfare legislation; (2) social work practice with asylum seekers and refugees being located within mainstream practice; and (3) a lack of preparedness for working with cultural diversity and the complexity of issues associated with supporting migrants to transform the unfamiliar into the familiar. We call for re-imagining working with cultural diversity through an approach that is inclusive of a migrant’s evolving sense of place and belonging.
How do transnational dynamics of family reunification impact social work? This chapter focuses on the transnational dynamics of family reunification. We specifically look at the lifeworld-dynamics of family relations beyond boundaries and parenting at a distance, but also at the ways in which both families and social workers deal with politically fabricated institutional and legal boundaries. Based on 30 in-depth interviews with refugee families from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iraq, Palestine, Somalia and Syria as well as 35 in-depth interviews with (in)formal social workers in Belgium, we analyse the impact of separation and reunification on family dynamics before, during and after the application for family reunification. We also explore how Belgian social workers deal with transnational issues pertaining to family reunification. Accompanying families throughout processes of family reunification challenges social workers to transcend the boundaries that underpin their work as agents within the national welfare state. Relationships between subjects of social work are increasingly exceeding state boundaries and moving ‘in between’ borders. Consequently, we argue that social work needs to be reassembled to fit this transnational reality and position itself within a transnational assemblage of power.
