Table Of ContentEssential Clinical Social Work Series
Nancy J. Murakami
Mashura Akilova Editors
Integrative Social
Work Practice
with Refugees,
Asylum Seekers,
and Other Forcibly
Displaced Persons
Essential Clinical Social Work Series
Series Editor
Carol Tosone, School of Social Work
New York University
New York, NY, USA
The Essential Clinical Social Work Series provides state-of-the-art theoretical and
clinical knowledge for clinical social workers and other mental health practitioners.
Nancy J. Murakami • Mashura Akilova
Editors
Integrative Social Work
Practice with Refugees,
Asylum Seekers, and Other
Forcibly Displaced Persons
Editors
Nancy J. Murakami Mashura Akilova
MSW Program School of Social Work
Pacific University Oregon Columbia University
Eugene, OR, USA New York, NY, USA
ISSN 2520-162X ISSN 2520-1611 (electronic)
Essential Clinical Social Work Series
ISBN 978-3-031-12599-7 ISBN 978-3-031-12600-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12600-0
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“Integrative Social Work Practice with Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Other
Forcibly Displaced Persons offers professionals culturally responsive and practical
resources to respond to the many needs of millions of refugees and other vulnerable
populations who have been forcibly displaced from their homelands. I wish that this
collective body of work and practice knowledge written by culturally and ethnically
diverse scholars and practitioners from various disciplines and contexts had been
available during past national initiatives spearheaded by the U.S. Office of Refugee
Resettlement (ORR). Undoubtedly, it would have positively impacted our collective
endeavor to provide a wide range of services to our country’s resettled refugees in
collaboration with many crucial stakeholders. To this end, this book needs to be read
and integrated into practice by all who seek to ethically support today's and tomor-
row’s refugees and other vulnerable populations.”
Nguyen Van Hanh, PhD, Former Director, Office of Refugee Resettlement,
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C., USA
“This moment in history cries out for guidance and insight into alleviating the plight
of forced émigrés, and it calls for the holistic, humanistic lens embodied in the dis-
cipline of Social Work. Integrative Social Work Practice with Refugees, Asylum
Seekers and Other Forcibly Displaced Persons has come at just the right moment to
help explain the inexplicable, and to help survivors to tolerate the intolerable.”
Hawthorne E. Smith, PhD, President, National Consortium of Torture Treatment
Programs; Director, Bellevue Program for Survivors of Torture,
New York, NY, USA
“The book closes a gap in practical social work knowledge about asylum seekers
and other people in similar situations. Social workers and other helping profession-
als must advocate for government support for these vulnerable and invisible groups,
especially for guaranteed legal representation and basic living conditions. I hope
this book and the courses will assist in these much-needed reforms.”
Maria Blacque-Belair, Executive Director, RIF Asylum Support,
New York, NY, USA
vi
“It is critical that scholarship analyze the existing policy frameworks on which our
social services programs are constructed. As a provider of refugee resettlement ser-
vices, I am limited in how to provide services based on narrow and outdated defini-
tions. This important work explores the need for services to support the well-being
of immigrants who are seeking asylum and humanitarian relief.”
Kelly Agnew-Barajas, MSW, Director, Refugee Resettlement, Catholic Charities
Community Services, Archdiocese of New York, New York, NY, USA
“The world is witnessing new crises around religion, caste, race, gender, sexuality,
nationalism, natural-disasters, climate-change, healthcare, and s ocial-economic-
political scenarios. This path breaking work by Dr. Murakami and Dr. Akilova is a
novel contribution to the global-local social work and interdisciplinary scientific field
to promote policy, practice, teaching, and research on the issues of refugees, asylum
seekers, and other forcibly displaced persons across intersectionalities.”
Lalit Khandare, PhD, Chair, Council on Global Social Issues, Council on Social
Work Education (CSWE); Member, Commission on Global Social Work
Education, CSWE; Director, MSW Program, Pacific University Oregon,
Eugene, OR, USA
“This book not only takes into account topics that are central to social work practice
with refugees, asylum seekers and displaced persons, but also accomplishes this
through a genuinely and meaningfully integrative approach. Nancy Murakami’s and
Mashura Akilova’s book makes a significant and thought- provoking contribution to
the broader international social work literature. This is an essential reading for
scholars, practitioners and students interested in international and comparative
social work.”
Vasilios Ioakimidis, PhD, Commissioner, Global Education Commission,
International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW)
“Social work has arguably helped to define the humanitarian response to refugee
resettlement, notably in the United States. This collection powerfully extends the
case for social work, to support those seeking asylum, fleeing social and economic
collapse, and experiencing forced displacement. It will inspire a new generation of
social workers to confront increasing complexities of displacement and assure the
displaced remain at the center of the humanitarian response.”
Patrick Poulin, LCSW, Regional Director, Resettlement, Asylum and Integration
(RAI), International Rescue Committee, Pacific West Region, USA
Experiences of refugees, asylum seekers, and other forcibly displaced persons are presented
in case studies throughout the book. The nations and territories covered in these case studies
are in color. Additional nations and territories discussed throughout the book are highlighted
in grey.
vii
Foreword
As president of the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW), I am pleased
to share in the introduction of this text and learning tool. A new book on social work
is always a cause for celebration since it brings the contributions of this wonderful
profession to light, which is why I embrace this one, entitled Integrative Social
Work Practice with Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Other Forcibly Displaced
Persons. It holds great value for global social work—in particular—and for the
social sciences—in general. Each chapter leaves us with great lessons, articulating
theories, practices, and reflections based on the professional experiences of authors
from different disciplines within the social field.
Undoubtedly, the subject of this work as well as its approaches and values align
with the principles held by the IFSW, from a rights-based approach. Indeed, all the
issues that are addressed in each of the chapters are related to the exercise and
defense of human rights, particularly of forcibly displaced persons worldwide, with
all the objective problems and the subjective suffering, mental health, and deep
traumas that this situation generates. The issue of human rights is closely linked to
social work. Over time, it has become a kind of professional mandate, the backbone
of the ethical-political dimension of our profession and of the training of social
workers: defending and vindicating human rights and fighting against the injustices
and social inequalities that harm them.
At the international level, this is reflected in the Global Definition of Social Work,
developed by the IFSW and the International Association of Schools of Social Work
(IASSW) and approved in Melbourne in 2014:
Social work is a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes social
change and development, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people.
Principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility, and respect for diversi-
ties are central to social work. Underpinned by theories of social work, social sciences,
humanities, and indigenous knowledge, social work engages people and structures to
address life challenges and enhance wellbeing.
As we can see, human rights appear as one of the fundamental principles of the
profession. Concerning this aspect of the definition, both organizations are in charge
of making explicit that the general principles of social work are based on respect for
ix
x Foreword
the intrinsic value and dignity of human beings, the principle of do no harm, respect
for diversity, and defense of human rights and social justice, which are the great
motivation for social work and our daily work.
The social work profession recognizes that human rights have to coexist with
collective responsibility. The idea of collective responsibility highlights the reality
that individual human rights can only be achieved if all the people and actors
involved assume responsibility towards each other and towards the environment,
assuming the importance of creating reciprocal relationships within communities.
Therefore, an important aspect of social work is to advocate for the rights of
people at all levels, enabling them to take responsibility for the well-being of each
other and realizing and respecting the interdependence between people and between
people and the environment.
Likewise, the IFSW together with the IASSW state that social work encom-
passes first-, second-, and third-generation rights. First-generation rights refer to
civil and political rights, such as freedom of expression and conscience and freedom
from torture and arbitrary detention; second-generation are socio-economic and
cultural rights that include reasonable levels of education, language, health, and
housing; and third-generation rights focus on the natural world and the right to spe-
cies biodiversity and intergenerational equity. These rights are mutually reinforced
and interdependent, allowing for individual and collective rights.
For social work at the global level, there is a correlation and reciprocity between
individual rights and collective rights, as well as a collective responsibility in their
real and effective fulfillment. This coincidence between social work and human
rights is institutionalized in the Global Social Work Statement of Ethical Principles,
approved at the General Meeting in Dublin in 2018, which establishes as principles
the recognition of the inherent dignity of humanity, promotion of human rights,
promotion of social justice, promotion of the right to self-determination, and pro-
motion of the right to participate, among others. For social work, the ethical dimen-
sion is constitutive of the profession, not only as a set of moralizing precepts linked
to what “should be” but also fundamentally related to principles that carry values
linked to the unrestricted defense and vindication of human rights as guiding axes
of our professional practices and the education of social workers.
Both the exercise of human rights mentioned above as well as the ethical prin-
ciples of the profession take part in a profound dialogue when it comes to tackling
a global social problem as complex as the forced displacement of populations, refu-
gees, and people seeking asylum as a result of these displacements worldwide. This
challenges our professional practices and makes it necessary to critically reflect on
the structural causes that lead populations to forcibly displace, to migrate, and to
seek refuge in other countries. Likewise, it requires reflecting and sharing experi-
ences on the implications in subjective and objective, as well as material and sym-
bolic, dimensions; knowing national and international legislation; and knowing the
policies and programs of international organizations that address this serious social
problem.
Of course, it also implies reflecting on and knowing the strategies and profes-
sional practices that serve people and populations that must move from their
