Human rights and social work: an individual and collective learning process

The new international definition of social work reaffirmed the recognition of human rights and social justice as fundamental foundations for social work. A human rights-based approach (HRBA) to social work is generally... [ view full abstract ]

The new international definition of social work reaffirmed the recognition of human rights and social justice as fundamental foundations for social work. A human rights-based approach (HRBA) to social work is generally conceptualized as a new paradigm, shifting social work away from its charitable and philanthropic character. Instead, governments are held accountable for providing qualitative and accessible social provisions, reorienting social work from the private to the public sphere, seeking after human dignity and emancipation for all.
The HRBA in social work is mostly conceived as a structural answer to social problems. It questions institutional arrangements that prevent people from living a life in human dignity. However, such an approach carries the risk of disconnecting the structural or collective dimension of a HRBA to social work from the individual or relational dimension of a HRBA to social work. Working at the structural level than becomes the mandate of ‘specialized’ practitioners such as policy workers, legal scholars, advocates etc., instead of being an essential part of social work itself. Moreover, human rights-based social work practices risk to become considered as power-free and neutral practices, merely concerned with ‘implementing’ law.
In our presentation we will discuss the relation between the structural and individual dimension of a HRBA to social work. We present an ongoing research project in Flanders (Belgium), where a HRBA to social work is studied in the context of community development. By way of an ethnographic research design, using methods such as field visits, participant observation, document analysis and in-depth-interviews with both practitioners and service-users, a HRBA to social work is studied. Based on this research, we argue for HRBA to social work as an individual and collective learning process where both the individual and collective dimension are essentially interconnected.