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SHUD, Sosyal Hizmet Uzmanlari Derneği, 2003. *Sosyal Hizmet Mesleginin Etik İlkeleri ve Sorumlulukları* [online]. Available from: www.shudernegi.org/?pnum=42 [Accessed 12 December 2015].

SHUD, Sosyal Hizmet Uzmanlari Derneği, 2015. *Sosyal Hizmet Mesleginin Etik İlkeleri ve Sorumlulukları* [online]. Available from: www.shudernegi.org/?pnum=175&pt=T%C3%BCrkiye%27deki+Sosyal+Hizmet+Uzman%C4%B1+Say%C4%B1lar%C4%B1 [Accessed 27 December 2015].

TEPAV, 2010. *Sosyal Hizmetlerin Sunumunda Kademelenme* [online]. Turkiye Ekonomi Politikalari Arastirma Vakfi. Available from: www.tepav.org.tr/upload/files/1285329379-1.Sosyal_Hizmetlerde_Kademelenme.pdf [Accessed 12 December 2015].

TUIK, 2013. *Turkey in statistics* [online]. Turkish Statistical Institute. Available from: www.amasyaplanlama.gov.tr/ortak_icerik/amasyaplanlama/istatistiklerle%20t%C3%BCrkiye%202013.pdf [Accessed 10 January 2016].

TUIK, 2014. *Women in statistics* [online]. Turkish Statistical Institute. Available from: www.turkstat.gov.tr/PreHaberBultenleri.do?id=18619 [Accessed 10 January 2016].

Uğuroğlu, H., 2003. *Dünden Bugüne Türkiye'de Sosyal Hizmet Mesleği* [online]. Sosyal Hizmet Uzmanlari Derneği. Available from: www.shudernegi.org/?pnum=6&pt=Tarih%C3%A7e [Accessed 10 January 2016].

UNICEF, 2012. *Türkiye'de Çocuk ve Genç Nüfusun Durumunun Analizi* [online]. Available from: http://abdigm.meb.gov.tr/projeler/ois/egitim/033.pdf [Accessed 12 December 2015].
# Part III

# Case Studies

Ursula Kämmerer-Rütten, Alexandra Schleyer-Lindenmann, Beatrix Schwarzer and Yafang Wang

## Introduction

Case studies are seen as an excellent way to provide insight into theoretical concepts and their practical implementation with a very specific focus on individual examples to illustrate a wider context. Therefore, Part III of this book presents case studies from all the countries introduced in Part II. The case studies aim to address current transnational issues in their respective national contexts and ways of dealing with problems and challenges through social work interventions.

In general, social work has three fields of action:

* First, social workers work with individuals and groups (families, communities etc.) and do ‘case work’;

* Second, social workers are concerned with social improvements and the overall well-being of their clientele, especially concerning the most vulnerable groups in societies;

* Third, social workers are encouraged to contribute with professional expertise to the development of (national and global) policies to improve the quality of life in society and campaign for social justice and equality.

Transnational social work shares these three fields of action but points to a lack of recognition concerning special demands resulting from international political and social developments such as migration, flight of refugees, violent conflicts and global hierarchies.

The cases in this section shed light on transnational perspectives of social work along at least one of the two related lines:

1. Individual approach: The case studies present specific life situations of people and illuminate the transnational perspective.

2. Global social justice approach: The case studies start from global demands for social justice and enlighten the effects of global developments on the local level.

In order to enlarge the transnational perspective even further, each case is followed by two comments from authors of other countries portrayed in this book. The aim
of this approach is to consider a case from different national perspectives and highlight similarities or differences as well as potentials or restrictions in social work practice. Each case study and the corresponding comments should be read and understood as interconnected entities with the aim to facilitate mutual understanding and transnational thinking. It is not deliberately intended to compare or even criticise countries or ways of dealing with similar issues by way of comment – quite the contrary, the case study and comment approach aims to facilitate the transfer of knowledge of social work practices from one context to another and enhance professional interest and comprehension.

The case studies cover eight subjects for transnational social work:

1 Educational inequalities of migrant children (China)

2 Refugees and asylum seekers (France)

3 Drug abuse (Germany)

4 Rights of migrant children (Great Britain)

5 Gender inequalities and violence against women (India)

6 Aging in war zones (Israel)

7 Poverty and exploitation of migrant workers (Malaysia)

8 Returnees (Turkey).

The eight case studies address three challenges for transnational social work:

* Access to social rights

* Relationship between international rights and citizenship rights

* Belonging and hybrid identities.

## Access to social rights

One major challenge for social work is related to industrialisation and world trade as well as their effects, such as exploitation of workers. The case study from China addresses the educational inequality for children of rural workers in the rural-urban migration process: due to increasing industrialisation and economic booms, farmers move to urban areas to meet the demand for (uneducated) workers, seeking at the same time better income and living conditions. Despite the important contribution of rural migrant workers to (urban) economic development, their rights to social welfare are largely restricted. These constraints can be seen in the outright denial of citizenship rights, e.g. education for children and health care for people who cannot register as urban dwellers. The case study reveals the challenges and the restrictions for social workers advocating for these people and attempting to develop strategies to reduce inequalities, especially for children.

The case study from Great Britain also focuses on children's rights but takes up this issue in the context of a refugee family. Different cultural norms influence attitudes concerning the concept of childhood and the importance of the family. The case study illustrates the difficult dynamics resulting from cultural differences between the family and the social worker. Moreover, this case deals with the
complex situation of physical and psychological demands caused by fleeing from
the Republic of Congo, distrust of the client towards state institutions and
misunderstandings caused by different cultural norms and demands. The juggling
of these demands by each family member and by the social workers is only one of
the interesting aspects of this case.

The case from France also takes up the issue of refugees, highlighting the
complex process of seeking asylum and the challenges for social work practice in
this context: the case shows the correlation of global issues played out on the local
level in connection to a supra-national legal framework. Social work is faced with
the dual mandate of caring for people in need and at the same time being the
gatekeeper for legal obligations formulated on European and national levels. As
in the British case study, (inter)cultural competences are shown as major
requirements for social workers.

The case study from Malaysia addresses aspects already perceptible in the case
studies from France and China: the case deals with the question of exploitation
linked to the absence of citizen's rights. Based on the example of domestic
workers from Indonesia, the case study looks into the denial of international
labour rights by the dominant host country. Fixed working hours as well as
demands to rest and recover – as laid down by national law – do not apply to
non-citizens. Moreover, the exploitation of (female) workers – who constitute the
majority of domestic workers in Malaysia – is strongly affected by violence
against women. The case shows that professional social work nearly does not
exist for non-citizens, who fight for better living and working conditions only with
the help of legal advocacy organisations and critical media.

The case study from India also takes up the issue of violence against women
and the influence of the media. The case focuses on a gang rape that attracted
global media attention. The case study links transnational women's movements
and advocacy networks and connects the international level to the local
proceedings. It points to the dynamics influencing the demands for justice and
revenge and raises questions concerning the ongoing violence against women
occurring every day. This case shows that social work cannot restrict itself to case
work with clients, but also has a political responsibility to promote social and
political change and development concerning the liberation of people (IFSW
2014) and the abolition of gender inequalities on local, national and global levels.

The case study from Germany addresses the global issue of drug addiction and
shows strikingly that the possibilities of social work interventions are highly
dependent on national concepts, laws and politics. This case study indicates that
working against isolation and social stigmatisation are major professional objectives
and social work in Germany aims to enable drug users to be part of society. Basic
rights like access to housing and employment are significant objectives but so also
is lobbying on a community level for public health. Considering the issue of drug
abuse as a global phenomenon on the one hand, it is the (national) legal framework
that enables or disables social (case) work to a large extent.

The political conflict between Israel and Palestine is the starting point and
frame for the case study from Israel. In view of the long-term nature of the violent
conflict which affects people in this area, the case study focuses on a common issue of social work: aging populations. The case study shows that the experience of dealing with situations like missile attacks differs from one person to another, even among a rather homogeneous age group. The study points to problems like isolation and trauma and emphasises the impact on elderly people but also the potential of social support.

## Relationship of international rights and citizenship rights

Beside the common issues and local strategies the case studies can be read along the line of the challenging relationship of human rights as a global ethical framework applying to everyone regardless of differences such as gender, ethnicity or nationality, and the protective yet exclusive notion of citizenship rights (linked to national territories).

The underlying theme of the case studies of China, France and Great Britain is freedom of movement clashing with the provision of social rights such as education, housing and health care reserved only for certain (obviously more privileged) groups – citizens, or in the case of much of China, urban citizens.

Similarly, this can be seen in the case of Malaysia, where the ‘ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work’ (ILO 1998) does not impact on the everyday experience of domestic workers who are usually unaware of protections provided by law.

The origin and effects of structural inequalities, like gender inequality, are highly debated at international levels. The Convention and the Beijing Platform for Action (UN Women) formulated in 2000 are examples of international agreements informed by local developments and struggles. At best, activities resulting from these conventions should spread their influence on national and local levels and hold political institutions accountable. The case study from India shows this process by focusing on issues of violence against women conflicting with the demand for bodily integrity. In the framework of political activism it is shown by the case study that the women’s movement in India finds itself in the position of fighting against gender inequality and violence but also has to stand up against claims for a death penalty.

Social work as a profession needs to juggle with the often conflictual relation between rights formulated on different levels which are to be acted out in order to realise the objective of social justice in a local context.

## Belonging and hybrid identities

Taking into account that transnational social work is concerned with issues of social justice and human rights across national borders, we need to consider that the issue of the individual belonging to a community or a nation state or a culture is something that cannot be left aside. (Subjective) belonging (Bhambra 2015) refers to the fact that our categorical objective memberships (e.g. nationality, gender, professional group) are only some of many dimensions that constitute identity. Relating to the
question of identity formation, what significance does membership to communities and/or nation states have for us? What are our subjective feelings of belonging and how does that interact with the local surroundings?

The case study from Turkey provides evidence that migration can have a wide range of consequences, especially on questions of categorical boundaries and feelings of belonging. These consequences not only concern the individual (migrant), but also the communities – this is not only about the ‘new’ community migrants move into, but also the community the migrants have left. On the one hand, migrants change and challenge national culture by adding new cultural features such as food, music and language. On the other hand, migrants are influenced by the new context they are living in. This influence reaches into identity formation, inter-generational conflicts, feelings of belonging and sometimes being an outsider at the same time, especially if coming back to the country of origin after a long period in a foreign country (returnees).

This question of acculturation processes and their effects on identity and identity strategies also emerges from the Israeli case study. By contrasting rural and urban communities and the conditions of belonging, it can be seen that freedom of decision making, e.g. in moving to a certain place, is an important objective.

It can be seen in most of the case studies presented in this section, that the issue of acculturation and identity continuity/change is of crucial importance to the well-being of people – and even more so, when people live transnational lives.

## References

* Bhambra, G.K., 2015. ‘Citizens and Others. The Constitution of Citizenship through Exclusion’, *Alternatives: Global, Local, Political* 40(2): 102–14.

* IFSW, 2014. *Global Definition of Social Work* [online]. ‘International Federation of Social Workers’. Available from: http://ifsw.org/get-involved/global-definition-of-social-work/ [Accessed 16 January 2016].

* ILO, 1998. *ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work* [online]. International Labour Organization. Available from: www.ilo.org/declaration/lang--en/index.htm [Accessed 10 January 2016].

* UN Women. *Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women* [online]. Available from: www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/ [Accessed 10 June 2015].
# 13 Educational inequality of migrant children and school social work interventions

Diqing Jiang, Shanmin Peng and Yafang Wang

## Migration and educational inequality of migrant children in China

Globalisation, the rise of the market economy and urbanisation have caused continuous intra-country migration in China, which is different from the transnational migration in most Western countries. Whilst intra-country migration does not cross national borders, it does cross what we call the ‘rural–urban boundary’, which to a great extent represents a dual structure or social divide in China. Through this example, rural–urban migration in China could broaden our transnational perspectives by redefining ‘borders’: not only national borders but more essentially structural borders or boundaries.

Since the Chinese government adopted an open-door policy in 1978, the last three decades have witnessed fantastic economic growth. As the world factory in the global capitalist system, China’s east coast areas drew huge amounts of cheap labour, giving rise to an unprecedented movement of rural-to-urban internal migration. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2009), the number of migrant workers rocketed to 242 million (Chan 2009). It is estimated that over 13 million of the children who accompany their migrant parents are eligible for compulsory education (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China 2014).

Such huge numbers of migrant children have posed a serious challenge to China’s public education system. Although the Compulsory Education Law claims that all children between six and fifteen years of age are entitled to nine years of compulsory education, most migrant children have been deprived of rights to study in urban public schools due to China’s Household Registration System (Hukou). The Hukou system was established in 1955 with the purpose of strictly controlling social mobility (Han 2004). This system still divides Chinese people into two classes – urban residents versus peasants. Local governments have obligations to offer social welfare for residents whose Hukou status is registered in their jurisdiction (Solinger 1999).

During the 1980s, market-oriented reforms undermined the Hukou system. In order to exploit cheap labour for the global market, peasants were allowed to work in cities. The majority of migrant workers are concentrated in labour-intensive, low-skill and low-pay occupations, contributing upwards of 16 per cent of China’s
GDP growth (Hamey 2008). In spite of this contribution, they are still denied urban Hukou status and related social benefits (Wang et al. 2013).

To make things worse, institutional exclusion has extended to their children. From the beginning of the migration movement, urban public schools generally refused to admit migrant children on the grounds that, according to the Hukou system, the migrants' hometown would be in charge of their compulsory education. As a result, migrants who wanted their children to receive education in urban public schools had to pay a great deal of 'school support fees' for admission. The fees charged by public schools varied from several hundred to thousands of RMB for each student, unaffordable for the majority of migrant families (Duan and Liang 2005). Therefore, most migrant children had and still have to enter sub-standard 'private migrant schools' which are notorious for unqualified teachers, out-of-date curricula, and shortage of teaching equipment.

## Educational policies concerning migrant children and the reproduction of inequality

In January 1995, journalist Jianping Li published a report on the education of migrant children. The description of the dire study environment shocked the public and triggered a heated debate. Faced with public pressure, the Chinese government took measures to improve the education of migrant children. In 1996, China's National Committee of Education, the predecessor of the Ministry of Education, issued Interim Measures of School Education for School-age Children among the Rural Migrant Population. These permitted migrant children to apply to urban schools based on their parents' temporary residency certificate instead of the household registration status (Chen and Feng 2013). In 1998, the committee announced the Interim Measures of School Education for Temporary Migrant Children, which ruled that public primary and secondary schools of host cities should offer the majority of migrant children temporary study, implying the transfer of obligation for the education of migrant children from sending areas to receiving areas. In 2001, the State Council articulated two principles for migrant children's education in The Decision of Reform and Development of Elementary Education: first, the government of host cities has the duty to provide migrant children with compulsory education; second, the public school system of host cities should enrol all migrant children. These two principles remain valid.

The policies yielded fruit: by 2014, around 80 per cent of migrant children entered urban schools to study with local urban children under the same blue sky (OECD 2015: 58). In spite of this accomplishment educational inequality is far from disappearing; the Chinese government still denies migrant children urban status and also denies them access to secondary education in urban public schools. Migrant children still have to return to high schools in their home regions if they want to take part in the national college entrance examinations, which are far more competitive and much harder than those in cities (Wang 2011).¹

In addition to institutional exclusion, social discrimination has profoundly affected migrant children's development. Living in cities year after year, most of the
migrant children have become accustomed to an urban lifestyle and identify
themselves with urban children, even though they have no urban Hukou status.
However, in public schools, they still experience discrimination. Their urban
classmates often look down upon them as rural kids of inferior status, seldom talking
or playing with them (Wang 2008). Gradually, most migrant children lose the
interest and aspiration to enter higher-level schools, which are crucial to social
mobility. Studies have shown that the self-esteem of migrant children is much lower
than that of urban children (Zhuang 2011) and their academic performance is below
the average level (Zhou and Wu 2008). It has been found that a high percentage of
migrant children suffer from serious emotional and behavioural disorders (Xiao and
Feng 2008). In some schools, migrant children even form a distinctive group and
develop a sub-culture similar to what Willis (1981) described in *Learning to Labor*
(Xiong 2010). As a result, when graduating from middle school, many migrant
children are generally unable to escape their parents' fate.

In sum, despite the gradually improving educational conditions for migrant
children, these efforts have not been enough to eradicate all educational inequalities
affecting migrant children. In connection with the Hukou system, they even play
a role in reproducing such inequalities.

School social work interventions for migrant children

Confronted with various emotional and behavioural problems among migrant
children as well as their learning difficulties, the Chinese government has required
school teachers to render more assistance; school teachers are asked to make
home visits and support migrant children and their families. However, it is difficult
for teachers to meet such requirements since they are already burdened, by
exam-oriented teaching, for example.

Recently, many urban public schools and migrant schools have introduced school
social workers (SSWs) to support migrant children. Compared with teachers, SSWs
have a broader mission to promote social justice and educational equality rather than
narrowly focus on academic performance. Moreover, the SSWs are equipped with a
unique professional ecological perspective, which takes each child as an inseparable
part of various social systems including families, schools and communities. This
perspective enables SSWs to broaden their conceptualisation of students' problems
and deliver services at various levels. At the micro level, SSWs make interventions to
mitigate children's behavioural problems and enhance parenting skills. At the middle
level, SSWs improve the school environment and utilise community resources. At the
macro level, SSWs advocate new policies on behalf of child welfare (Dupper 2003).

The following section describes the case of Lequn in Shanghai to illustrate SSWs'
achievements and challenges in promoting educational equality for migrant children.

The Lequn Project

By 2010, migrant children accounted for one-third of all school-age children in
Shanghai (Lan 2014). Since 1990, Shanghai has been one of the few cities that
have opened public schools to migrant children. The city has even extended the scheme from compulsory education to vocational education. A range of learning options are provided for migrant children, for example nursing, computer science, engineering, and cooking skills, so that they can have a chance to obtain a stable job with an adequate salary (Chen 2009). However, the Shanghai government found that some serious problems still prevail among migrant children, including poor academic performance, high drop-out rates, behavioural and mental disorders (Li et al. 2010).

In order to cope with these problems, the officials from the Education Department at Pudong District in Shanghai introduced SSWs to schools in 2002. They designed a ‘one school, one social worker’ programme and invited Lequn Social Work Service Organization to deliver social work services to six schools.

With a fund of half a million renminbi (RMB)² from the government, Lequn ran a one-year campaign titled ‘Simple School Project’. Each school was assigned a social worker. At first, Lequn’s social workers employed the House–Tree–Person Psychological Test³ and Achenbach Children Behaviour Checklist⁴ to evaluate migrant children’s mental health. They observed children’s behaviours and emotional responses in classrooms, playgrounds and dining rooms. The problems they recorded included withdrawal from groups, difficulty in sleeping or eating, anger, aggression, defiance etc. Then they identified ten students with significant behavioural problems at each school. With an ecological perspective, Lequn workers made home visits, interviewed parents, mapped out a genogram, culturagram⁵ and social history, and analysed social factors of misbehaviour. They found that migrant children were exposed significantly to more risks than urban students: many migrant children grew up in single-parent families; parents took two or three jobs at the same time with little time to care for their children; often, physical abuse was used to punish children. In addition, poor housing conditions impaired their health. Altogether, the socialisation of migrant children encountered numerous barriers, including discrimination by urban classmates, lack of pocket money to participate in school events, poor health. Thus, migrant students often show low self-esteem and inadequate communication skills. Given those problems, Lequn workers collaborated with teachers to design various intervention plans. Their projects were based on the Interpersonal Cognitive Problem Solving (ICPS) programme model aimed at teaching migrant children communication and decision-making skills (Greenberg et al. 2000). They adopted the following intervention methods to modify behaviours and enhance social competencies of the migrant children.

The Simple School Project achieved remarkable effects. Many children improved their behaviours and study results. With extended funds, in 2006, Lequn launched the ‘Sunny Childhood Project’, which provided a broad range of services like family therapy, counselling classes for teachers, and chances for community participation.

Since 2008, the Shanghai government has allowed migrant children to attend public vocational schools. Lequn set up career orientation for students at middle
<table><caption>**Table 13.1** Intervention methods for behavioural modification and social competence enhancement of migrant children</caption><thead><tr><td>Methods</td><td>Grade</td><td>Time</td><td>Outcome</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Counselling</td><td>Elementary and middle school</td><td>once a week</td><td>reduce stress, anxiety, increase social skills</td></tr><tr><td>Token reward<fnref n="1" /></td><td>Elementary and middle school</td><td>eight classes per week</td><td>reduce disruptive behaviour</td></tr><tr><td>Chinese chess</td><td>Elementary school</td><td>two hours per week</td><td>enhance attention and prudence</td></tr><tr><td>Puppet</td><td>Elementary school</td><td>two hours per week</td><td>improve social skills</td></tr><tr><td>Finger Painting</td><td>Middle school</td><td>two hours per week</td><td>less aggressive, quieter and more creative</td></tr></tbody></table>

schools. Migrant students visited automobile factories, top restaurants in skyscrapers and famous accounting firms in Shanghai. The clean and comfortable working environment, modern facilities and high salaries inspired them to pursue new dreams. Most of them began to study much harder in order to enter vocational schools.

‘I am Shanghainese’ was a programme to enhance social integration. Lequn organised a group of elderly Shanghainese as volunteers to teach migrant children the Shanghai dialect and history at community centres as an extracurricular activity. At the end of the programme, Lequn arranged a one-day tour of landmark buildings or museums in the city.

## The dilemmas faced by Lequn social workers

When they started, Lequn social workers shared the same mission, perspective, and methods as their counterparts in the Western world. However, as they struggle to adapt to local situations, their practices differ in the following aspects:

**Mission:** although the original goal of Lequn's projects was to mobilise the resources of local education agencies and communities to meet the needs of students and families, in practice their social workers designed and implemented projects with the priority of reducing or preventing behavioural problems instead of improving school and living circumstances, and advancing political advocacy for equal rights of migrant children.

**Power:** in spite of the broad range of services they provide, the Chinese SSWs are regarded as assistants and subordinate to teachers. It is the same with Lequn social workers – they are seldom invited to participate in the policy-making

<footnote n="1">1 Token reward was used to reduce the frequency of disruptive behaviours like screaming and whistling in class. Lequn workers set agreements with children: if the disruptive behaviours decreased, the children would get rewards like cakes and pencils.</footnote>
process of school or community affairs, and intervention plans cannot be
implemented without teachers' permission.

**Conclusion and discussion from a transnational perspective**

In comparison to migration stories in many developed countries, the migration inside China and the educational inequality of migrant children are more characteristic of structural inequalities than cultural differences; with the development of China's market economy, Chinese migrant children have been experiencing institutional exclusion, (global) economic exploitation and social discrimination. Due to the still prevalent Hukou system as a fundamental structural divide, migrant children have been confronted with educational inequalities in various forms and face the high risk of becoming a new underclass.

In the last decade, Lequn and some other Chinese non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have conducted school social work services in numerous schools and produced many respectable outcomes. However, the situation is far from favourable for the development of a school social work aiming to promote educational equality for migrant children. In general, social work in China still lacks legitimate status and public recognition. School social work in particular can only be subordinate to the powerful conventional school system which is heavily exam-oriented.

What is even more challenging is that social workers in China have rather limited space to critically activate institutional change and policy reform. As a result, despite the crucial help from Chinese SSWs, migrant children still suffer from significant educational inequalities created by various institutional barriers, especially the stratified Hukou system. Only with and through enabling justice-oriented critical social policies (Otto and Ziegler 2014) can social workers fight effectively against the educational inequality and social exclusion for migrant children. Justice-orientation accurately represents one crucial perspective for transnational social work.

**Notes**

1. In China, a college sets a fixed admission quota for each province, often with a higher number of students coming from its home province. Because most good colleges are located in east coast cities, those urban children find it much easier to enter college. For example, compared to Shanghai, Henan province has fewer colleges per capita, therefore an applicant in Henan needs a much higher score than his/her Shanghai counterpart to get into the same college.

2. Half a million RMB is around 83,333 USD.

3. The House-Tree-Person drawing is a test invented by Robert C. Burn to evaluate personality in children. It asks each child to draw a house, a tree, and a person in motion, with a different sheet of paper for each.

4. Achenbach Child Behaviour Checklist refers to a standardised measure in child psychology for evaluating maladaptive behavioural and emotional problems.

5. A culturagram is a tool social workers widely use to make a family assessment that provides a graphical representation of various aspects of an individual and family's culture.
References

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# 14 Migrant children and social work interventions in India

## Comment on the Chinese case study from an Indian perspective

Shewli Kumar

Globalisation in Asia has impacted on existing lifestyles and development processes in multiple ways: Asian economies have traditionally been agricultural, with almost 60–70 per cent of the population living in rural areas (FAO 2014: VI). In India, existing marginalised groups like the scheduled tribes, scheduled castes, girls, disabled and ethnic minorities are bearing the brunt of the state’s inability to ensure rights and undertake affirmative action. International pressure for further opening of the economy to trade, the destruction of many traditional livelihoods, specifically agriculture and artisanal trades, and the inability of the local markets to compete with international imports have all combined to destroy sustainable life and livelihoods. This has contributed to near-continuous migration of families belonging to these social categories. Migration in India has been a regular phenomenon, especially from rural to rural based on seasonal cycles; in 1961 there were about 144 million migrants by place of birth, however by 2001, it was 307 million (GOI 2001). The distribution of migrants by migration streams is generally associated with the degree of economic and social development of sending and destination areas. Population pressure on land, increased opportunities for work, education and marriage, in the case of females, contribute to rural and urban migration. However, the number of migrants taking the rural to rural path is estimated at 53.3 million (GOI 2001). This migration is high because of the requirement for particular kinds of skills and a systemic kinship pattern of migration based on the particular cropping pattern (Nandy 2012; Choudhury 2014).¹

While in China the Hukou system excludes children from rural areas from education in urban areas, in India there are two kinds of education systems, one of which is provided universally by the government and the second which is funded by private entities (though the land and some infrastructure is provided to such schools by the government at subsidised rates) and which caters to elite and upper-class children. With increasing migration from rural to urban areas, the children of migrant parents are uprooted from their socio-cultural contexts and capital and are forced to adapt to new and alien environments, thus facing a peculiarly difficult kind of vulnerability – left unprotected and bereft of education, health and other such facilities. Migrant children do not have the required documentation (like birth certificates, certificate of completion of a particular class etc.) that ensures admission to services in the destination areas. Besides, the landowners who employ the parents
do not encourage them to send their children to school since they are a ready source of cheap labour. The informal relations and lack of appropriate legislation, which would ensure social security, health and education benefits for the parents, serve to create an exploitative web around the children (Smita 2008; Nandy 2012; Kendre 2011). When they move to different places their social networks (grandparents, neighbours and relatives) and communal life are disturbed. The breaking of these networks makes children particularly vulnerable – with both parents employed in hard agricultural labour the children are often left to fend for themselves. Many of them are also employed (Nandy 2012; Ghosh 2014) to work in the fields at low rates providing additional family income. The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986 prohibits children below the age of 14 years from such work, however the informal nature of the work as well as lack of implementation mechanisms means children remain vulnerable to these forms of exploitation.

Several studies (Nandy 2012; Ghosh 2014; Smita 2008) have revealed how children work in extremely exploitative conditions, with little or no remuneration. The migration patterns are particularly linked to changes in agricultural practices from food crops to cash crops, including cotton and sugarcane, both of which require intensive labour for cutting and selling. Migration for agriculture takes place several times in a year, because sowing, harvesting, transplantation etc. are all seasonal and all require labour. Similarly, there is frequent migration for industrial and agro-industrial work such as salt-making, brick-making, stone-quarrying, fishing etc. The common thread that research (Ghosh 2014; Smita 2008) shows is that the families largely belong to marginalised groups like the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, who have either been deprived of their small bits of land in villages or displaced from forests where they traditionally live.

## Educational policies and programmes in India

While in China the focus has been to ensure that migrant children are able to access education in urban areas, including through compulsory education programmes, in India due to strong campaigns on the right to education, the 86th amendment of the Indian constitution was evoked, whereby the right to education (RTE) became a fundamental right. This means that children from any social, cultural and economic background have the right to enrol in a neighbourhood school. Together with the RTE, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) was launched in 2001. The major goal of the SSA is to ensure that every child is in school and studying well. The emphasis is also on community ownership and involvement of parents in monitoring and managing schools.

However, the SSA (Bhatty 2014; Malik 2015) does not spell out the ways in which it will deal with the specific situation of migrant children and ensure their continuation in schools including in destination areas during migration. The circular migration of their families due to the push and pull factors of work and lack of appropriate documentation for children, alongside discriminatory attitudes of teachers and school authorities, all deter migrant children from continuing their education.
Interventions by social workers: innovations and models

Unlike China there has been no legal provisioning of social workers within the formal school system in India and hence addressing issues of discrimination, providing outreach and counselling to left-out children is not possible in

<table><caption>Table 14.1 Social work interventions by NGOs</caption><thead><tr><td>Migrant children: issues</td><td>Specific problems</td><td>Interventions by social work NGOs</td><td>Outcomes</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Dropping out of Education</td><td>Denial of education in sending and destination areas<br>Potential and existing child labour</td><td>SAVE, MAEGA Trust and Janarth - Bridge schools to enable children to re-enter education in sending areas, residential schools and institutional settings in case of frequent migration<br>Health services and vocational training</td><td>Better educational outcomes<br>Safety and reintegration into the school system<br>Better health outcomes<br>Prevention of child labour</td></tr><tr><td>Child Labour</td><td>Trafficked by known adults who are contractors for the employers<br>Long working hours, ill health from hazardous conditions, inadequate and unpaid wages<br>Addiction to alcohol and other substances</td><td>SAVE, MAEGA Trust and Janarth - Children rescued, health and other facilities, shelter, advocacy<br>Multi-stakeholder networking and rehabilitation<br>Mobilisation of parents into unions for wages and services for children<br>Mobilisation of children into child unions<br>Advocacy with corporate stakeholders for promotion of child labour-free labels as part of fair trade practices</td><td>Better informed children and parents<br>Reintegration in regular schools<br>Empowerment of parents<br>Convergence with state programmes to ensure better livelihoods and incomes of the families</td></tr><tr><td>Sexual exploitation</td><td>Impact on girls specifically, health, trauma, and trafficking</td><td>Visthar - Rescue and rehabilitation, anti-oppressive counselling, holistic residential, facilities</td><td>Overcoming trauma and supporting recovery<br>Good educational and vocational skills<br>Move towards independent living</td></tr></tbody></table>
government schools. Working with migrant children is among the most challenging and difficult arenas for social workers. The social work responses for migrant children have been largely voiced through NGOs like SAVE (Tamil Nadu), MAEGA Trust (Tamil Nadu), Janaarth (Maharashtra) and Visthar (Karnataka). Most of their efforts are located within the local contexts, and patterns of intervention are based on the state of the migrant children and the kind of agricultural and other work practices of the specific region. Table 14.1 captures the range of interventions.

**Conclusion and implications for transnational social work practice**

Since migration can be both forced and involuntary, the core issues of safe migration, social protection of children and development opportunities for their families are major challenges that need to be addressed. Social workers can work in the sending areas ensuring appropriate rural livelihoods and programmatic interventions to strengthen incomes for families of such migrant children. This would stem the flow of migration and ensure children go to schools on a regular basis. Further, if migrant families in the destination areas are provided with adequate basic services, social protection benefits and wages, social workers can engage with the families to send their children to school. Anti-discrimination and anti-oppressive approaches by social workers to ensure mainstreaming of migrant children in regular schools and advocacy for inclusion of social workers in school systems needs to be made mandatory in India as in parts of China.

**Note**

1. Nandy and Choudhury discuss the example of the State of Maharashtra where sugarcane is a flourishing cash crop with good returns and yet for cutting the cane intensive manual labour is utilised. Due to this demand for labour, the families in Central Maharashtra who belong to poor and backward communities are given loans as advance payment for cane cutting. A local villager known to them hires them on behalf of a sugarcane factory owner in the destination rural area, and gives the wages as a loan. When it is harvest time they migrate to Western Maharashtra (the sugarcane belt) along with children in the age group of 6–14 years.

**References**

Bhatty, K., 2014. 'Review of elementary education policy in India. Has it upheld the constitutional objective of equality?' *Economic & Political Weekly* 49(43–4): 100–107.

Choudhury, C., 2014. *A Bitter Harvest* [online]. Available from: https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/the-sugarcane-cutters-bitter-harvest/ [Accessed 1 January 2016].

FAO, 2014. *The state of world food and agriculture. Innovations in family farming*. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Ghosh, B., 2014. 'Vulnerability, forced migration and trafficking in children and women. A field view from the plantation industry in West Bengal', *Economic & Political Weekly* 49 (26–7): 58–65.
GOI, 2001. *Census of India 2001. Migration* [online]. Government of India. Available from: http://censusindia.gov.in/Census_And_You/migrations.aspx [Accessed 20 December 2015].

Kendre, B., 2011. 'Socio-economic background and seasonal migration of sugarcane harvesting workers', *International Journal of Humanity and Social Sciences* 1(2): 15–21.

MAEGA [online]. MAEGA Trust Organization. Available from: http://maegatrust.org/[Accessed 10 January 2016].

Malik, B.B., 2015. 'RTE and marginal communities. A perspective from the field', *Economic & Political Weekly* 50(5): 25–7.

Nandy, D., 2012. *Child rights situation analysis. Children of families engaged in sugarcane farming in Maharashtra* [online]. Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics; Save the Children Publication. Available from: http://resourcecentre.savethechildren.se/sites/default/files/documents/childrights.pdf [Accessed 2 January 2016].

SAVE [online]. *Social Awareness and Voluntary Education*. Available from: www.savengo.org [Accessed 10 January 2016].

Smita, 2008. *Distress seasonal migration and its impact on children's education* [online]. Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE). Available from: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/1869/1/PTA28.pdf [Accessed 2 January 2016].
15 The response to educational inequality between cities and the countryside and school social services

Migration from the countryside to cities and its impacts upon the education system

Comment on the Chinese case study from a Turkish perspective

Uğur Tekin

The case study about the educational inequalities of rural migrant children in China raises a global problem, which has also brought challenges for the educational system in Turkey during the last decades, and continues to do so. Starting in 1950 as a result of industrialisation and the changes in economic policy pursued by Turkish governments, movement from the countryside to cities has continued increasingly up until now. In 1950, thirty-five per cent of the population lived in cities, whereas this figure has now reached 80 per cent (TUIK 2015). The decade between 1980 and 1990 was the period when this change was most rapidly witnessed as the time when the Turkish economy integrated within the global economy. In 1983, the population was also disrupted in urban and rural areas with megacities emerging in important economic centres due to rapid migration. Today, 16 million people live in the largest city, Istanbul – immigrants, illegally or semi-legally, built houses close to industrial plants on the city peripheries (TUIK 2015). These houses turned into residential areas lacking infrastructure. A majority of such areas, called ‘gecekondu’,¹ were later legalised. Today a considerable portion of Istanbul’s population live in areas formed in this way (Tekeli 2009: 129).

This movement of intra-national migration brought about inequalities in children's education both in cities and rural areas, adding new problems to the already existing problems in the Turkish education system. Since 2012, compulsory education has been implemented in three stages, each lasting for four years. That means that there are 12 years in total of compulsory education. During the first two four-year stages, which are defined as elementary education, the first period covers the ages from five to nine years, while the second period covers education in middle schools (nine to thirteen years). Education in the third four-year period, which is
named secondary education, could be in the form of formal education or
administered by non-formal and distance education institutions.

Severe problems exist with regard to schooling rates in elementary education; about 5 per cent of the elementary school-age population cannot make use of their right to education. Likewise, 20 per cent of the secondary school-age population do not or cannot continue with secondary education. Some of the children enrolled in primary schools quit school before the end of the eight-year period. According to the data of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK 2015), of the over 64 million Turkish citizens over the age of six years, nearly five million are illiterate. This figure corresponds to 7.68 per cent of those who have reached the age of literacy. The share of women in this illiterate population is 79.98 per cent (TUIK 2015).

In addition to the existing problems, rapid urbanisation has been creating new problems in immigrant-sending areas as well as in the *gecekondu* of immigrant-receiving big cities. Education is one of the key institutions building social and cultural capital and therefore a major precondition for opportunities to advance in life. Therefore, the different challenges for education in urban and rural areas will be highlighted below.

**Problems in the education system in the countryside brought about by migration**

In immigrant-sending areas, the migration from rural to urban areas causes the shutdown of schools and problems in transportation for pupils due to lower population density. Because of limited opportunities, teachers do not usually prefer to work in immigrant-sending areas. As a result, schools in such areas lack a sufficient number of qualified teachers as well as having high turnover rates. Social and cultural capital is harder to build when parents and members of the family are illiterate or not well educated. In such areas where the main source of economic income is agriculture, the number of children per family is above Turkey's average (TUIK 2015). Children of land-owning families often work in farms and therefore fail to attend school regularly. Landless families have to work as seasonal workers and therefore travel with their children even during the education term. The government has introduced new measures in immigrant-sending areas, two of which are explained below (Doğan 2011: 223f).

**Regional primary boarding schools**

Regional primary boarding schools have been in use since 1962 to ensure access to elementary education services for the primary school-age population in rural areas lacking schools. All expenses of pupils enrolled in these schools are financed by the government. The number of these schools increased in the 1990s and they have been considerably effective in ensuring schooling in immigrant-sending regions (MEB 2003: 17).
## Mobile elementary education

Mobile elementary education was first introduced tentatively in five schools in 1989–1990 to primary school-age children living in dispersed settlements with small populations. Pupils are taught in multi-grade classes in order to have access to equal education opportunities. Having proven successful, the programme was quickly expanded, and by 2013–2014 more than 825,000 pupils from nearly 24,000 primary schools were signed in to more than 10,000 central boarding schools (MEB 2015).

## Education problems in city peripheries of the immigrant-receiving cities

One of the structural characteristics of the new settlements appearing on the peripheries of immigrant-receiving cities could be defined as the lack of infrastructure resulting from the fact that settlement was already in place before any infrastructure could be built in these areas. Two problems arise through this process:

1. In such areas, the number of pupils per classroom is above Turkey's average² both at elementary and secondary school levels (TUIK 2015: 74f).

2. Although settlement areas rank among the first in Turkey in the number of classrooms built, they fail to meet the residents' needs due to continued immigration. The schools lack the necessary equipment. Most of the teachers employed in such areas apply to be transferred to other schools due to negative working conditions.³

In terms of social and cultural capital, families living in these settlements usually bear the characteristics of immigrant-sending regions. Most of the time, all family members have to work whenever jobs are available to support themselves in the new environment. With both parents working, girls in particular have to care for their younger siblings and therefore have less time for school and homework. Among immigrant families, those belonging to minority groups speak a language other than Turkish at home, which creates grave problems for the children at school.

## Psychological Counselling and Guidance (PCG) services

In response to the above-mentioned problems, the most significant change in Turkey's education system has been the introduction of Psychological Counselling and Guidance (PCG) services since 1961. The system of social services in Turkey, which is quite weak, has only made a breakthrough through the legal arrangements as part of the European Union harmonisation process (Şahin Taşğın and Tekin 2013: 133). Particularly in *gecekondu*, substance use, neglect, abuse and violence in schools are common. That causes psychological health problems that should be dealt with by school psychological counsellors. With the introduction of PCG services at schools, school social services were entirely taken over by school psychological counsellors. School counsellors were appointed to educational
institutions to deliver guidance and psychological counselling services and to supplement the efforts of these teachers. Counselling and Research Centres (RAMs) were opened up in order to identify individuals with special education needs and carry out guidance and psychological services for them. There are various aptitude, intelligence, and standard achievement tests to survey pupils, and this in itself can be quite problematic (Melekoglu 2009).

Inspired by the American concept in the 1960s, the system was first systematically introduced in Turkey as a practice of school social services in certain pilot schools in 1970–1971. Initial application of the system was limited to secondary education and, following the recognition of PCG services, was taken over by the top institution of the Turkish National Education System. Undergraduate and graduate education programmes were introduced in Educational Faculties to train staff for school PCG units and Counselling and Research Centres (RAMs). There has been a considerable increase in the number of staff employed in the field. For instance, in 2001–2002, the number of pupils per counsellor was 2,836 in elementary schools and 905 in secondary schools (Akkök and Watts 2004). Yet, even today, the number of school counsellors is still insufficient. By 2013, one school counsellor serves 554 students. Apparently, despite all efforts, PCG services in Turkey are still underdeveloped both in terms of the services offered and organisational strength. Nearly all students graduating from PCG programmes work for public institutions, because private psychological counselling centres are not widespread enough. The existing system of school psychological counselling falls short of meeting the demands both in numbers and quality.

## Conclusion

Significant changes taking place in Turkey’s rapid urbanisation have brought about new inequalities in education, particularly between the city and the countryside. New institutional structures and practices have been developed to solve the education problems arising both in immigrant-sending regions and in the *gecekondu* in immigrant-receiving cities. Different school models have been introduced in the countryside, such as Regional Primary Boarding Schools and Mobile Elementary Schools in order to ensure equal education opportunities. School social services were superseded by new systems such as the Psychological Counselling and Guidance (PCG) Services at schools and Counselling Research Centres (RAMs) opening up in various *gecekondu* areas. Emerging in a period when other aspects of social services are still underdeveloped, these systems remain rudimentary and in search of a model specific to Turkey.

## Notes

1. *Gecekondu:* ‘built during the night’ is a Turkish word, meaning houses which were built illegally in urban areas by people from rural areas (intra-country migrants). These settlements are comparable to slums.

2. Average number of students per classroom in Turkey is 29.

3. The classrooms are overcrowded, which affects the level of instruction.
References

Akkök, F., and Watts, T.G., 2004. *Meslekî Bilgi, Rehberlik ve Danışmanlık Hizmetleri Türkiye Ülke Raporu*. Ankara: Milli Eğitim Basımevi (MEB).

Doğan, İ., 2011. *Eğitim Sosyolojisi*. Ankara: Nobel Akademik Yayıncılık.

MEB, 2003. *Yatılı İlköğretim Bölge Okulları ve Pansiyonlu İlköğretim Okulları Yönetici Kılavuz Kitabı*. İstanbul: Milli Eğitim Basımevi.

MEB, 2015. *Milli Eğitim İstatistikleri. Örgün Eğitim 2014-2015*. Ankara: Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı.

Melekoglu, M.A., 2009. 'Special education in Turkey', *International Journal of Inclusive Education* 13(3): 287-98.

Şahin Taşgün, N., and Tekin, U., 2013. 'Türkiye'de Sosyal Hizmetin Temel Karakteristikleri ve Güncel Görünümü', in H. Acar, N. Negiz, and E. Akman, eds, *Sosyal Hizmet. Temelleri ve Uygulama Alanları*. Ankara: Maya Akademi, 119-35.

Tekeli, İ., 2009. *Kentsel Arsa, Altyapı ve Kentsel Hizmetler*. İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları.

TUIK, 2015. *Statistics on children 2014* [online]. Turkish Statistical Institute. Available from: www.tuik.gov.tr/IcerikGetir.do?istab_id=269 [Accessed 10 January 2016].
# 16 Refugees and asylum seekers in France

Muriel Mellon-Mustafa and
Alexandra Schleyer-Lindenmann

The aim of this chapter is to give an outline of social work with refugees and asylum seekers in France. This is a major transnational societal issue which, sadly, is not only the case at the present time of writing but will be in the future: according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), displacement is the new challenge for the twenty-first century (UNHCR 2013). In Europe, the three top countries receiving refugees in 2013 were Turkey (609,900 persons), France (232,500 persons) and Germany (187,600 persons) (UNHCR 2014: 13). Persons who flee their country and seek protection from another state through the application of an asylum claim are named asylum seekers: 'individuals who have sought international protection and whose claims for refugee status have not yet been determined' (UNHCR 2014: 39). If they fulfil specific conditions, they can obtain the status of refugee; refugees are defined by the UNHCR as 'individuals recognized under the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees ... ; individuals granted complementary forms of protection ... and those enjoying temporary protection' (UNHCR 2014: 39). These legal definitions are important because they set the frame of the social workers' agency with this group.

This chapter first places the question of refugee protection in a European perspective, as French policy in this field is strongly influenced by its European framework. Then the French situation is presented and finally a case study from a CADA (Centre d'Accueil pour les Demandeurs d'Asile – reception centre for asylum seekers) illustrates the challenges for social work in this field.

## European framework

The member states of the European Union have included asylum rights in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (OJEC 2000). Since 1999, the European Union has also worked towards the creation of a Common European Asylum System (CEAS) (EU Migration and Home Affairs; EC 2008), starting with the Amsterdam Treaty (1999) followed by the Lisbon Treaty (2007). The aim of the treaties and of the CEAS is twofold: on the one hand, they wish to offer better protection to refugees and asylum seekers through harmonisation and minimum standards in procedures. On the other hand, there is also the will to prevent abuse of the asylum system (EC 2008: 11).
Several directives, notably Directive 2011/95/EU on standards for the qualification of third-country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection, and two directives from June 2013 on norms of reception (Directive 2013/33/EU) and procedures (The European Parliament and of the Council of the European Union 2013), as well as two regulations (Dublin and Eurodac) have been written and are or will be integrated in the signature countries' systems (Lochak 2013). On the whole, the European Union has progressed on the path of a more coherent framework for asylum seekers, but there are still inequalities in reception and treatment between member states (Le Pors 2011). Moreover, as Lochak points out, the common asylum system seems rather more oriented towards 'containment and dissuasion than protection' (Lochak 2013: 2).

## French framework

Over recent years, France has fixed a general code for the reception and integration of all foreigners, the Code de l'Entrée et du Séjour des Etrangers et du Droit d'Asile (code concerning the entry and stay of foreigners and asylum rights, CESEDA),¹ which includes questions concerning asylum rights as well. The right to asylum is structured with reference to three frameworks: the Geneva Convention, European policy and the French Constitution (Le Pors 2011).

In its article 711-1 CESEDA indicates the two principal institutions implied in the asylum-seeking procedure in France: Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides (French Office for Refugees and Stateless Persons) (OFPRA) and Cour Nationale du Droit d'Asile (National Court for the Right to Asylum) (CNDA).

### Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides (OFPRA) – French Office for Refugees and Stateless Persons

OFPRA has two missions: it is in charge of the procedure of recognition of refugee status or statelessness quality and it can grant subsidiary protection when the Geneva Convention Criteria cannot be applied (CESEDA, book VII, title II). An asylum seeker will submit his or her claim to OFPRA where it is decided upon by a civil officer, after a hearing of the asylum seeker.

### Cour Nationale du Droit d'Asile (CNDA) – National Court for the Right to Asylum

If the asylum application has been refused by OFPRA, the asylum seeker can make an appeal to this court. There is a judge and two assessors who hear the asylum seeker's case.

According to the French ministry of home affairs, in 2014 OFPRA received a total of 64,536 asylum claims or applications for refugee status. OFPRA took decisions in 52,004 cases and attributed asylum 8,738 times (1,924 cases of subsidiary protection included). This is an attribution in 16.80 per cent of the
cases, and a rise of 46.2 per cent of positive decisions compared to 2013. For its part, CNDA received 39,115 appeals and took decisions on 37,345 cases, cancelling 5,826 decisions by OFPRA. Thus, the CNDA acceptance rate is 15.60 per cent (Ministère de l'intérieur 2015). For France in 2014 European statistics report an acceptance rate in the first instance of 21.74 per cent which is far behind the average acceptance rate for the European Union which stands at an average of 45.22 per cent positive decisions (Eurostat 2015).

Other important institutions are the Prefecture (representative of the French state) where the asylum seeker must register within 90 days of arrival in France, the asylum platform which is the first welcome desk for the asylum seeker, and the CADA (reception centre for asylum seekers).

The mission of the CADA is to offer reception and provide services such as housing for asylum seekers, administrative, social and medical counselling, to put in place school integration for children, to organise socio-cultural activities for the residents and to manage asylum seekers' departure from the institutional system after the end of the asylum claim procedure (MIOMCTI 2011).

In 2012 there were 269 CADAs in France with a total of 21,410 places (REM 2013). This covered about 33.7 per cent of the need for accommodation for asylum seekers in 2012 (REM 2013). In addition, there are places in the Hébergement d'Urgence dédié aux Demandeurs d'Asile (emergency accommodation for asylum seekers, HUDA). For the reception and direct work with asylum seekers at the asylum platform or in the CADAs many of the employees are social workers. The case study we present is from a CADA in Marseille which houses 70 persons who are followed by a team of three social workers, one psychologist and one language teacher. In line with the current approach in social work (see Jami, Pillant and Segura, Chapter 6) these professionals see their work as a process of accompanying and empowering the clients and not as a mission of controlling or assisting passive receivers of social action.

## Case description

The D family arrived in France in July 2010. They are a family of four: the parents, aged about 50 years, and two sons, aged 17 and 27 years. The family is of Kosovar nationality and of Romani origin. They have fled Kosovo because of the severe discrimination and violence they faced as Romani people. After their arrival in France they submitted their asylum claim and were subsequently interviewed at the OFPRA in January 2011. In March 2011 they were taken in for housing by the CADA. They were accommodated in a three-room flat by the social worker and started to familiarise themselves with their new environment, gathering information through a series of appointments with the social worker, as well as through activities at the CADA (e.g. French lessons). In November 2011 they got a negative answer to their claim from the OFPRA. They had one month to submit their appeal to the CNDA, which they accomplished with the help of a social worker. In January 2012 the father died. The rest of the family was interviewed at the CNDA in March 2012 and obtained refugee status in April 2012.
In the following we take up elements of this case to illustrate some points which seem important to us in the context of professional social work with asylum seekers or refugees: competencies of the social worker, trust, empowerment, and time management.

## Competencies

First, juridical and geopolitical literacy. The social worker needs to be familiar not only with common law, but also with asylum law, on the national and European levels. He/she also has to keep informed about the geopolitical and cultural context of the countries the asylum seekers come from. Concerning the D family for example, it is important to know what it means to be a Romani family in Kosovo, as opposed to being Albanian.

Second, the social worker has to develop a high intercultural awareness (Guéguen 2012; Verbunt 2009; Gaitanides 2011), and must be able to analyse the impact of cultural filters (Camilleri 1996) in the interaction with his/her client. For example, when the father of the D family died, it was important to understand and respect the mourning rites of the family. Moreover, one task of the social worker is to assist the asylum seeker to produce a written report of the reasons which have forced the person to flee his/her country (this will be submitted as the asylum claim) and to prepare with the asylum seeker the interview with the civil officer of the OFPRA. The asylum seeker needs to understand that the person who will interview him/her at the OFPRA or the CNDA does not share his/her culture and thus does not have the same mind-set and way of reasoning. Thus, it is not sufficient for the asylum seeker to tell his/her story, but it is necessary to make it understandable by explaining its cultural codes. This work of ‘cultural translation’ is prepared with the social worker who thus must be alert to cultural codes and have a great deal of cultural knowledge.

## Trust

Asylum seekers are people with special needs: having fled from their homes, they arrive, often alone, in a foreign country where they usually do not know the culture or the language. They are weakened or traumatised by what they have experienced in their home country or during their flight (and eventually by their non-welcome in the country in which they seek asylum) (Baubet et al. 2004). He or she might not be trusting due to this context and it is necessary to first build a relationship based on mutual confidence where it is clear that the social worker is there to support the asylum seeker (ANESM 2014). This might be more difficult if there are cultural or language barriers. It is necessary to listen, but also to exchange and explain the proposed actions. In the case of the D family, as they had already submitted their claim when arriving in the CADA, the exchanges and the social support took place in a positive environment, with the help of an interpreter and without time pressure. The social worker and the family developed confidence in a trusting relationship little by little.
Empowerment

Social work means accompanying, not assisting. The notion of accompanying
induces the idea of the active participation of the asylum seeker or refugee in the
complete procedure. This empowerment (Bacqué and Biewener 2013) or
participatory approach, now standard in France (see Jami, Pillant and Segura,
Chapter 6), works so that the person is as autonomous as possible at the end of the
supporting process. For example, the D family learnt French through the language
courses at the CADA, and the youngest son, although beyond obligatory school
age (which is 16 years), attended school.

Time management

Another challenge is to manage the waiting process. For example, the D family waited ten months for an answer from OFPRA, after their hearing. As they did not have the right to work (a work permit can be obtained under certain conditions which are difficult to attain), the time can seem long, and waiting for an answer from OFPRA or CNDA is a synonym for uncertainty. Very often asylum seekers have difficulties projecting themselves into the future as they do not know whether they will obtain refugee status and the right to stay, or not. The main task of the social workers is to help them manage this time of waiting through social and cultural activities, as well as information workshops, for example on life in France, aimed at enhancing their independence in everyday life, regardless of the result of the asylum claim (ANESM 2014).

The final mission of the CADA is to manage the asylum seekers' leaving of the CADA at the end of the procedure, both for the people who obtained refugee status as well as for those who did not (after their appeal at the CNDA). It is made clear at the beginning to the asylum seekers that the accommodation provided is only given during the time of the procedure. To accompany the exit of a family who have obtained refugee status is relatively easy for several reasons: the client immediately gets a receipt attesting their international protection, is integrated into common law, can look for a job, etc.

People who do not obtain asylum status have one month to leave the CADA. It is not always possible for the families to respect this delay, having no other solution for accommodation. Some decide to return to their country of origin and ask for 'help for voluntary return' at OFII (Office Français d'immigration et d'intégration - French Office for Immigration and Integration). Others face expulsion or staying illegally, and the role of the social worker is to discuss with the person all the possible options, to inform him/her of their rights and to advise him/her on potential support through organisations other than the CADA (ANESM 2014).

Transnational perspective/Challenges for the future

From a transnational perspective, taking in and working with refugees will remain
a priority worldwide for many years. In Europe, the European Migration Forum
which is constituted as a platform for dialogue on migration, asylum and migrant integration met for the first time on 26 and 27 January 2015 (EU Migration and Home Affairs). This is also a challenge for social workers: to accompany asylum seekers and refugees efficiently needs – like many other fields of social work – constant training, learning and reflection during professional life, in order to be up to date concerning the legislation and socio-political situation of the countries the persons come from. This training should be part of the education of social workers, but for the moment it is very marginal in terms of volume of teaching (Carrère and Daadouch 2006). The field of intercultural competencies for social workers has received more attention in recent years (Verbunt 2009; Guélamine 2000) and there are sometimes modules of teaching intercultural competencies in social work schools. Moreover, there is a general awakening to transnational questions of social work, especially in training and cross-border cooperation (Hirliet et al. 2013).

Recently a law concerning the reform of asylum rights along the lines of the European Directives ‘procedure’ and ‘protection and reception’ has been issued.² One aim of the law is to accelerate the procedure at OFPRA. Another major change is the possibility for the applicant to be assisted when interviewed by the OFPRA officer. It is all the more important that this person, possibly a social worker, is well informed on cultural and geopolitical questions concerning the country of origin.

Social workers working in this field should also benefit from exchanges with social workers from other countries, in order to get a better understanding of different situations, to exchange information and ‘good practices’, and to develop a shared position. Currently such a network is being created starting from a French-Italian initiative in Marseille. A first conference on asylum rights in mediterranean countries took place in Marseille in October 2014 (FNARS 2014) and hopefully others will follow which will allow for a transnational perspective on asylum from the social workers’ point of view.

## Notes

1. Code de l'Entrée et du Séjour des Etrangers et du Droit d'Asile (CESEDA) Legifrance. gouv.fr (2016).

2. Law n° 2015-925 of 29 July 2015 concerning the reform of asylum rights Legifrance. gouv.fr (2015).

## References

ANESM, 2014. *Personnalisation de l'accompagnement des demandeurs d'asile accueillis en Cada* [online]. Agence nationale de l'évaluation et de la qualité d'accueil des établissements et services sociaux et médico-sociaux. Available from: www.anesm.sante.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/ANESM-RBPP_CADA_Mai_2014.pdf [Accessed 18 June 2015].

Bacqué, M.H., and Biewener, C., 2013. *L'empowerment. Une pratique émancipatrice*. Paris: La Découverte.

Baubet, T., Abbal, T., Claudet, J., Le Du, C., Heidenreich, F., Levy, K., Mehallel, S., Rezzoug, D., Sturm, G. and Moro, M.R., 2004. ‘Traumas psychiques chez les demandeurs d’asile en France. Des spécificités cliniques et thérapeutiques’, *Journal*
*International de Victimologie* 2: 107–13. Available from: www.jidv.com/BAUBET,T-JIDV2004_%202(2)..htm [Accessed 26 January 2016].

Camilleri, C., 1996. 'Le champ et les concepts de la psychologie culturelle', in C. Camilleri and G. Vinsonneau, eds, *Psychologie et culture. Concepts et méthodes*. Paris: Armand Colin, 7–80.

Carrère, V., and Daadouch, C., 2006. 'Le droit des étrangers, parent pauvre de la formation', *Plein Droit* (70): 19–22.

EC, 2008. *Policy plan on asylum. An integrated approach to the protection across the EU* [online]. Commission of the European Communities. Available from: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2008:0360:FIN:EN:PDF [Accessed 1 March 2015].

EU Migration and Home Affairs. *Common European Asylum System* [online]. European Commission. Available from: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/asylum/index_en.htm [Accessed 10 January 2016].

Eurostat, 2015. *Asylum Statistics* [online]. Eurostat. Available from: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_statistics [Accessed 20 March 2015].

FNARS, 2014. *Garantir le droit d'asile en Méditerranée. Le travailleur social entre politiques publiques et accueil des demandeurs d'asile. Les cas de l'Italie et de la France* [online]. Asilo in Europa. Available from: http://iremam.cnrs.fr/IMG/pdf/Programme_Droit_asile_avec_Pilotage_octobre_2014.pdf [Accessed 15 March 2015].

Gaitanides, S., 2011. 'L'ouverture interculturelle des services sociaux. État des lieux et perspectives', in A. Schleyer-Lindenmann and T. Neuer-Miebach, eds, *Soziale Arbeit im Dialog. Le travail social en dialogue*. Frankfurt: Fachhochschulverlag, 243–45.

Guéguen, J.-Y., 2012. *Bilan des politiques sociales, perspectives de l'action sociale. L'année de l'action sociale 2012*. Paris: Dunod.

Guélamine, F., 2000. *Intervenir auprès des populations immigrées*. Paris: Dunod.

Hirliet, Ph., Meyer, J.L., Molina, Y. and Muller, B., eds, 2013. *Travail social sans frontières. Innovation et Adaptation*. Rennes: Presses de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Santé Publique.

Le Pors, A., 2011. *Le droit d'asile*. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Legifrance.gouv.fr, 2015. *LOI n° 2015-925 du 29 juillet 2015 relative à la réforme du droit d'asile* [online]. Available from: www.legifrance.gouv.fr/eli/loi/2015/7/29/INTX 1412525L/jo [Accessed 10 January 2016].

Legifrance.gouv.fr, 2016. *Code de l'entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d'asile* [online]. Available from: www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCode.do?cidTexte=LEGI TEXT000006070158 [Accessed 10 January 2016].

Lochak, D., 2013. *L'Europe, terre d'asile? La revue des droits de l'homme* [online]. Available from: http://revdh.revues.org/401 [Accessed 17 February 2015].

Ministère de l'intérieur, 2015. *Les demandes d'asile* [online]. Ministère de l'intérieur. Available from: www.immigration.interieur.gouv.fr/Info-ressources/Statistiques/Tableaux-statistiques/Les-demandes-d-asile [Accessed 12 March 2015].

MIOMCTI, 2011. *Circulaire of August 19th* [online]. Ministère de l'Intérieur, de l'Outre Mer, des Collectivités territoriales et de l'Immigration. Available from: http://circulaire.legifrance.gouv.fr/pdf/2011/08/cir_33657.pdf [Accessed 1 March 2015].

OFII [online]. Office Français de l'immigration et de l'intégration. Available from: www.ofii.fr/ [Accessed 10 January 2016].

OJEC, 2000. *Charter of fundamental rights of the European Union* [online]. Official Journal of the European Communities. Available from: www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/pdf/text_en.pdf [Accessed 15 January 2015].
REM, 2013. *L'organisation des structures d'accueil pour demandeurs d'asile en France*
[online]. Réseau Européen des Migrations. Available from: www.immigration.interieur.gouv.fr/Europe-et-International/Le-reseau-europeen-des-migrations-REM/Les-publications-du-REM/Les-etudes/L-organisation-des-structures-d'accueil-pour-demandeurs-d-asile-en-France [Accessed 15 January 2015].

The European Parliament and of the Council of the European Union, 2013. *Directive 2013/32/
EU of the European parliament and of the council of 26 June 2013. On common procedures
for granting and withdrawing international protection* [online]. The European Parliament
and of the Council of the European Union. Available from: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32013L0032&from=FR [Accessed 26 January 2016].

UNHCR, 2013. *Global trends 2012* [online]. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Available from: www.unhcr.org/51bacb0f9.html [Accessed 5 January 2015].

UNHCR, 2014. *Global trends 2013* [online]. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Available from: www.unhcr.org/5399a14f9.html [Accessed 5 January 2015].

Verbunt, G., 2009. *La question interculturelle dans le travail social*. Paris: La Découverte.
# 17 Legitimacy versus legality

## Comment on the French case study from a German perspective

Therese Neuer-Miebach

Germany and France have a lot of points in common concerning the treatment of asylum seekers. The European Convention on Human Rights, ECHR, 1950, the Geneva Refugees Convention, GRC, 1951, and the Dublin Covenant III, 2013, apply to both countries. As in France, the right to asylum is a constitutional human right in Germany.¹

Similar to France, Germany has a Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), a subordinate agency of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, with branch offices in all Federal States (Länder).² As a centre of excellence for migration and integration, it is responsible for conducting asylum procedures, granting refugees protection, supporting integration and resettlement, and additionally undertaking research on migration and integration.³

Since the recruitment freeze for migrant workers in 1973, German legislation on immigration for people from outside the EU has been severely restricted. Beyond the concession of family reunification and the selected recruitment of highly skilled employees since 2012 and 2013 respectively, there no longer exists any real chance of legal immigration. This means, applying for asylum seems to be the only chance for anyone seeking to escape from poverty, or racial/ethnic discrimination, or ‘simply’ seeking to achieve better living conditions.

### Case study: Family D in Germany

According to German law, a family would need to provide plausible proof that they feared (repeated) persecution on the grounds of membership of a certain social group (§ 3, section 1 AsylVfG) or that they had justified reasons to expect serious harm, such as torture or inhuman treatment, if they returned to their country of origin, and thus could eventually be granted asylum.

According to the latest amendments in 2015, a family would not be allowed without express permission to leave their designated place of residence (initial reception centres) during the first three months – the so-called residential obligation. A job could be taken up after three months, but only if there were no German applicants for the position in question. The family would receive an allowance below the standard rate of social benefit (HARTZ IV), plus the costs for accommodation and heating.
For family D, from Kosovo, social workers might provide psychological and social care, organise accommodation and prepare them for their first interview to explain their flight, i.e. their own personal account of the reasons for their flight including the necessary evidence/proof with the aim of obtaining the right to reside in Germany for the duration of their asylum proceedings. This could only happen if the initial reception centres were staffed with significantly more social workers than at present. The interview at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees is the key to the subsequent course of the asylum procedure and thus of existential importance to the asylum seekers.

In addition to the initial reception centres a number of social and legal advice options exist, offering thorough preparation for this interview. Family D would, however, need to know of the existence of these and access them quickly. In addition to an interpreter, family D may name a person in their trust, such as a social worker, who can be present at the interview but has no right to intervene.

If family D were granted the right to reside in Germany, they would, as a consequence of the asylum procedure, be moved to a communal dwelling in a federal state – consideration being given to arguments for family reunification, but also for administrative reasons (so-called Königstein quota).

During this phase of continuing uncertainty, families are under constant pressure to demonstrate their willingness to be integrated. Here social workers – if employed by migration advice centres or specialist migration services – have a crucial motivating and support function to fulfil, for example through involvement in integration courses, or by helping to find schooling or vocational training for the son who is still a minor, helping to find a flat, or accompanying and supporting family members to communicate with the authorities.

Within the framework of the National Action Plan for Integration (Die Bundesregierung 2012) there are a number of accompanying and follow-up services, concerning language, education or vocational training, labour-market access and social integration into the local community.

If family D's application for asylum was approved, they would receive a residence permit for three years and a work permit. If not, they could apply for subsidiary protection in the case where they are at risk of serious injury when going back to their country of origin: a limited resident concession (one year), without the right to family reunification.⁴

Should family D be seeking asylum or subsidiary protection in Germany after September 2015, they would have very little chance of success, unless they were well prepared to justify their application,⁵ to explain the reasons for their flight and to prove a fear of serious injury in an extremely shortened asylum procedure, and this despite the fact that Kosovo has been declared a safe country of origin.⁶ Under these recently aggravated conditions, it would probably be very difficult to plausibly explain their need to be protected on the grounds of their belonging to a particular social group – the Roma community. Arguments concerning education and employment prospects in order to provide a better future for their children would, according to the latest guidelines, have a slight chance of success, but only if the application for asylum had been lodged in their home country and if an employment or vocational training contract already existed.
The current EU-wide debate, which pits ‘political’ against ‘economic’ refugees and asylum seekers, leaves little scope for the recognition of poverty as an existential crisis and, so far, this is not accepted as a reason for granting asylum or refugee status. Refusal of entry at the border, encouragement towards voluntary return to their country of origin, residence in an initial reception centre under discriminatory conditions, pending judgement on their application for asylum or, at the end of the day, deportation, are the options currently being discussed.

‘Training and learning’ on the part of asylum seekers probably increases the ‘inclination’ of the administrative authorities to deal favourably with their applications; they also help toward the integration of asylum seekers into German society (Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge 2015: 42ff, 58; Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge 2013).

Social work conceives its own ethical self-image and legitimacy as a Human and Civil Rights profession (Wronka and Staub-Bernasconi 2012), a vision with which German social work agrees. Being a branch of social policy, social work is not only about human interaction with those in need, nor simply about carrying out governmental measures to control migration. Social work must be involved in issues relating to the acceptance and integration of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers into society. This requires fundamental ‘intercultural awareness’ (Langenohl et al. 2015), specific knowledge of the legal framework surrounding migration and of the social security system, and also the ability to use all possibilities when conducting advice and mediation in cooperation with other disciplines.

The social work profession is one of the players in the field of policy towards refugees and asylum seekers and, as implied in the chapter on the French situation, its clear and unequivocal involvement as an agent of change and social justice is long overdue, be it on the national or the European scene. Any moves towards a professional crossing of national borders in social work should be encouraged, insofar as they are directed towards ‘an action-based and agent-centred perspective on social processes and towards the development of transnational social formations and transnational social space’ (Friesenhahn and Kniephoff-Knebel 2011; Staub-Bernasconi 2007).

## Concluding remarks

Current treatment of refugees, including that of family D above, clearly shows that Germany is still not a country of immigration. On the one hand, the fundamental right to asylum is maintained, although it was strongly constrained by the asylum compromise of 1993. On the other hand, it is striking how restrictive Germany’s migration policy seems when compared with the post-war situation, when in unprecedentedly difficult economic conditions a much greater number of refugees were accommodated, and in view of the clear advantages that Germany can expect from an influx of migrants in terms of demographic development, the labour market and tax revenue. This German position cannot evolve without a common, coherent – a fortiori, human rights based – migration policy in the EU.
## Notes

1. See article 16a, German Constitution, GG, 1993.

2. The current legal base in 2015, latest amendments on 24 October 2015: the Asylverfahrensgesetz (AsylVfG), named Asylgesetz (AsylG) since 24.10.2015, the Asylbewerberleistungsgesetz, AsylbLG, the Aufenthaltsgesetz, AufenthG. Gesetz zur Verbesserung der Rechtsstellung von Asyl suchenden und geduldeten Ausländern (1.1.2015), das Gesetz zur Neubestimmung des Bleiberechts (u.a. beschleunigte Abschiebung) 1.8.2015.

3. See § 75 AufenthG, as well as: Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge: Das Bundesamt und seine Aufgaben. Nürnberg 2013.

4. See: § 4 AsylG.

5. Stand der Abschiebungen in den Kosovo Ende 2014 (Deutscher Bundestag 2015: 2; 15f).

6. Reintegration and Emigration Programme for Asylum-Seekers in Germany, REAG, and Government Assisted Repatriation Programme, GARP Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge

## References

Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge. *Kosovo-Rückkehrprojekt 'URA 2' [online].* Available from: www.bamf.de/DE/Rueckkehrfoerderung/ProjektKosovo/projektkosovonode.html [Accessed 10 January 2016].

Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, 2013. *Migrationsbericht des Bundesamtes für Migration und Flüchtlinge im Auftrag der Bundesregierung [online].* Available from: www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/DE/Publikationen/Migrationsberichte/migrationsbericht-2013.pdf?__blob=publicationFile [Accessed 10 January 2016].

Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, 2015. *Das Bundesamt in Zahlen 2014. Asyl Migration und Integration [online].* Available from: www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/DE/Publikationen/Broschueren/bundesamt-in-zahlen-2014.pdf?__blob=publicationFile [Accessed 10 January 2016].

Deutscher Bundestag, 2015. *Kleine Anfrage der Abgeordneten Ulla Jelpke, Jan Korte, Sevim Dağdelen, Kerstin Kassner, Martina Renner, Dr. Petra Sitte, Frank Tempel, Halina Wawzyniak, Jörn Wunderlich und der Fraktion DIE LINKE [online].* Available from: http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/18/041/1804142.pdf [Accessed 10 January 2016].

Die Bundesregierung, 2012. *Nationaler Aktionsplan Integration Zusammenhalt stärken. Teilhabe verwirklichen [online].* Available from: www.bundesregierung.de/Content/DE/_Anlagen/IB/2012-01-31-nap-gesamt-barrierefrei.pdf?__blob=publicationFile [Accessed 10 January 2016].

Friesenhahn, G.J., and Kniephoff-Knebel, A., 2011. *Europäische Dimensionen sozialer Arbeit. Schwalbach/Ts.: Wochenschau-Verlag.*

Langenohl, A., Poole, R., and Weinberg, M., eds, 2015. *Transkulturalität. Klassische Texte. Bielefeld: transcript.*

Staub-Bernasconi, S., 2007. *Soziale Arbeit als Handlungswissenschaft. Systemtheoretische Grundlagen und professionelle Praxis.* Bern, Stuttgart: UTB.

Wronka, J., and Staub-Bernasconi, S., 2012. 'Human Rights', in K.H. Lyons et al., eds, *Sage handbook of international social work*. London: SAGE Publications, 70–85.
# 18 Seeking refuge in India

## Comment on the French case study from an Indian perspective

Sohini Sengupta

Population movement across borders in the South Asian region is a long-standing historical phenomenon. A total of 200,000 refugees and asylum seekers lived in India in 2015 (UNHCR 2015a, 2015b). These numbers are predicted to increase in coming years. The refugee situation in India is complicated by the absence of a standard legal and administrative system for refugee recognition and status determination. Like other countries in this region, the national government's political priorities shape the fortunes of refugees. Absence of uniform standards and primacy of bilateral relations in decisions about refugee status leads to differential treatment of asylum seekers in India (Weiner 1993; Chimni 2003; Bhattacharjee 2008).

Despite the heterogeneity of practice and outcomes, India is often lauded as providing a credible protection regime for millions of refugees from border countries displaced by or escaping conflict, political instability and persecution (UNHCR 2015b). According to the UNHCR, refugee human rights are protected under the Indian constitution (UNHCR 2012). The National Human Rights Commission and the Judiciary, along with non-governmental organisations, have been key institutions whose activism and intervention have contributed towards recognition and safeguarding of refugee rights in India. Not surprisingly then, work with refugees and asylum seekers constitutes a highly challenging domain of intervention at multiple levels for social work professionals in India.

The objective of this commentary is to compare the situation of refugees and asylum seekers in India with the case study from France (see Mellon-Mustafa and Schleyer-Lindenmann, Chapter 16). It begins with an introduction to the legal and other humanitarian standards guiding responses to the refugee situation in India. This is followed by a section that compares the situation in India with that of France, highlighting the similarities and differences in intervention realities. The commentary ends with a discussion about the complex context and challenges of social work among refugees in India.

## Humanitarian laws, standards and the status of refugees in India

Legal status of asylum seekers in India is based on two laws – the Foreigner's Act 1946 and the Citizenship Act 1955. These define all those who enter without
visas to be illegal migrants, with no exceptions made for refugees or asylum seekers (HRLN 2007). India is neither a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Convention on the status of Refugees nor to the 1967 Protocol. Although it is one of the largest receiving countries for refugees in the region, specific national legislation to determine the status and treatment of refugees is absent (Bhattacharjee 2008). This is generally viewed as a problem and influential debates about the cause of this state of affairs and consequences for refugee experiences in India exist (Weiner 1993; Chimni 2003; Bhattacharjee 2008; Chaudhary 2004).

National governments in South Asia, newly independent with a complex mix of ethnic groups among its citizenry and lacking resources to effectively police their boundaries, have traditionally been wary of multilateral standards for refugee issues, viewing these as a compromise of national sovereignty (Weiner 1993). Instead, they have upheld the primacy of bilateral relations between national governments as the principle framework for evaluating refugee status. This perspective has led to two clear outcomes: first, differential treatment of refugees by the state and, second, contravention of the humanitarian principle of Non-Refoulement (Chimni 2003).

Lacking citizenship status or legal credentials, refugees are unable to access essential services such as schools and hospitals. Compelled to depend on informal relations with members of the local community on unequal terms, refugees face poverty and experience discrimination (Bhalla 2014). Recent news items cite the traumatic experiences of Rohingya Muslims seeking asylum in India to escape persecution in Myanmar (Bhalla 2014). Compared to the Rohingya, the Sri Lankan Tamils and Afghans have received better treatment and achieved greater local integration (Brar 2013).

While India has provided some groups of refugees and asylum seekers with social security, medical help and visas (Brar 2013), differential treatment remains a cause for concern. For instance, the state has made better provisions for Tibetan refugees compared to Chakma refugees from Bangladesh or Tamils from Sri Lanka (Chimni 2003). However, border and coast guards, unaware of the principle of ‘non-refoulement’ have also turned back asylum seekers (Chimni 2003: 463).

Despite the absence of any standardised protection regime, the Indian judiciary has made significant contributions to the protection of refugee rights using the framework of the Indian constitution and interpretation of international laws (Bhattacharjee 2008). The establishment of the National Human Rights Commission in 1993 also enabled closer monitoring of refugee rights. In 1995, the NHRC filed public-interest litigation on behalf of 65,000 Chakma refugees who had been settled in the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh since 1965. The Commission sought the intervention of the Supreme Court of India to safeguard the life and freedom of the refugees and enabled them to obtain citizenship rights (Chimni 2003: 457). More recently, the state government in the southern state of Tamil Nadu has extended basic social welfare benefits on a par with Indian citizens to Tamil Sri Lankan refugees residing in government camps (rediff news 2014).
## Institutions, laws and practice context: France and India

In India in 2014, the UNHCR registered 5,074 asylum seekers and 25,865 refugees (UNHCR). According to recent media reports unregistered refugees living in India numbered 30,000 (Bhalla 2014).

UNHCR is the key agency for refugees in India (UNHCR 2015b). Activities undertaken by humanitarian organisations such as the UNHCR provide some of the needs, legal frameworks and support services that are required by people seeking refuge or asylum (Brar 2013). At present the UNHCR undertakes the following activities: registering and providing documentation to asylum seekers and refugees; seeking long-term solutions, including returning to home countries once a conflict situation has stabilised; and local integration and initiatives to promote economic self-reliance (Brar 2013). The UNHCR works closely with the government and civil society organisations to ensure state services such as health and primary education for refugee families.

In the context of India, a great deal of social work and welfare activities takes place within the broader context of 'informal security regimes'. These regimes have been defined as a 'set of conditions where people rely heavily upon community and family relationships to meet their security needs' (Gough 2008: 33). The liminal position of asylum seekers limits their access to state welfare entitlements for eligible citizens. Potential asylum seekers from neighbouring countries seek out ties of kin and ethnic groups, merge into local communities and actively pursue citizenship rights by obtaining required documents. Media and human rights advocacy groups play an important role in making appeals for rights protection and against human rights violations to the Human Rights Commission and the Courts.

## Challenges for social work

Social workers need to work within a diverse set of social and institutional contexts within India to address issues pertaining to refugees and asylum seekers. Often this includes establishing identities, establishing links with state welfare services, advocating for asylum seekers' rights, initiating legal action and helping to secure required documentation. The social work professionals working on refugee issues tend to be most often located outside the sphere of the formal state administration – and form a crucial bridge between invisible asylum seekers and unresponsive government bureaucracy.

A critical requirement for social workers therefore is to be well trained with appropriate skills to work within various flexible, unstructured, low-paid and often conflict-prone community settings. They are required to possess in-depth knowledge of diverse cultural, socio-economic and political contexts that shape refugee identities, situations and strategies. The current nature of social intervention on this issue also indicates that social workers must be trained in constitutional law, international human rights law and national legal regimes and should have abilities to build coalitions and networks with other formal and informal institutions working with refugees.
## Conclusion

Social workers in India are similar to social workers in France in their broader commitment towards empowering refugees and asylum seekers. However, unlike in France, the commitment of Indian social workers goes beyond provisioning and administering of better services and creating a just and humane context of implementation. In India, social workers at the outset must work towards building a case for rights and entitlements of refugees and state responsibility for each new crisis situation as it emerges. The extent to which they are able to meet the broader goal of refugee protection and empowerment is constrained by the absence of uniform standards. However, Indian social workers also achieve remarkable successes through advocacy initiatives around human rights. Social work among refugees in India, despite its long-standing nature, remains as yet largely undocumented and defies classification and standardisation.

## References

Bhalla, N., 2014. *Myanmar's Rohingya stuck in refugee limbo in India* [online]. Thomson Reuters. Available from: www.reuters.com/article/us-foundation-stateless-india-rohingya-idUSKBN0HA07F20140915 [Accessed 12 December 2015].

Bhattacharjee, S., 2008. 'India needs a refugee law', *Economic & Political Weekly* 43(9): 71–5.

Brar, A., 2013. *India much advanced in refugee protection*. UNHCR CoM [online]. Observer Research Foundation (ORF). Available from: www.orfonline.org/research/india-much-advanced-in-refugee-protection-unhcr-com/ [Accessed 11 December 2015].

Chaudhary, O.N., 2004. 'Turning back: An assessment of non-refoulement under Indian law', *Economic & Political Weekly* 39(24): 3257.

Chimni, B.S., 2003. 'Status of refugees in India. Strategic ambiguity', in R. Samaddar, ed., *Refugees and the state. Practices of asylum and care in India, 1947-2000*. New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications, 443–71.

Gough, I., 2008. 'Welfare Regimes in Development Contexts. A Global and Regional Analysis', in I. Gough, G.D. Wood, and A. Barrientos, eds, *Insecurity and welfare regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Social policy in development contexts*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 15–48.

HRLN, 2007. *Report of refugee populations in India* [online]. Human Rights Law Network. Available from: www.hrln.org/admin/issue/subpdf/Refugee populations in India.pdf [Accessed 10 December 2015].

rediff news, 2014. '*We have been treated well in India, this is the best model of refugee welfare*' [online]. Available from: www.rediff.com/news/special/we-have-been-treated-well-in-india-this-is-the-best-model-of-refugee-welfare/20140212.htm [Accessed 12 December 2015].

UNHCR. *What do we do in India* [online]. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Available from: www.unhcr.org.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8&Itemid=130 [Accessed 12 December 2015].

UNHCR, 2012. *Refugees in India share daily struggles with UNHCR chief* [online]. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Available from: www.unhcr.org/50d47f056.html [Accessed 12 December 2015].

UNHCR, 2015a. *The refugee story in data and statistics* [online]. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Available from: www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c4d6.html [Accessed 17 August 2015].
UNHCR, 2015b. *UNHCR subregional operations profile - South Asia* [online]. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Available from: www.unhcr.org/pages/49e4876d6.html [Accessed 12 December 2015].

Weiner, M., 1993. Rejected people and unwanted migrants in South Asia. *Economic & Political Weekly* 28(34): 1737–46.
19 Narcotic and psychotropic
drugs, transnational
intersections and social work
with drug users in Germany

Irgard Vogt

Issues around drugs are always crossing from local to global, from national to transnational. This is also valid for concepts of how to handle drugs which were categorised as dangerous to consumers and/or societies. For more than half a century, 185 nations agreed to prohibit the trade and use of a number of so-called dangerous or narcotic drugs. As a consequence, dealers of such drugs as well as users were criminalised and – when caught by police – went to prison. This chapter tries to outline the transformation of the concept of prohibition into a concept of harm reduction which addresses the demands of users/addicts in a way which helps them survive and reintegrate into society.

The prohibition concept was established internationally by the United Nations in the 1950s, followed by conventions on the production and supply of narcotics and other psychotropic drugs.

The 1961 convention covered drugs derived from three plants: opioids from the poppy (Papaver somniferum) and derivatives, cocaine from the coca bush (Erythroxylum coca), and cannabis from the cannabis plant (Cannabis sativa). A separate 1971 convention made the non-medical use of a wide range of synthetic drugs a punishable offence. A 1988 convention on trafficking consolidated the focus of the control system on suppression of illicit markets by including provisions to prevent money laundering and extending controls to precursor chemicals.

(Room and Reuter 2012: 84)

The Commission on Narcotic Drugs and the World Health Organization were empowered to add and remove drugs from the list of controlled substances. Currently, the conventions are signed by 185 nations who agreed to fulfil the treaty obligations: prohibition of trade and use of narcotics and of psychotropic substances. However, the medical and scientific use of drugs was and is permitted under strict control (for instance in scientific studies). To enforce the prohibitive laws on narcotics, the law is armed with drastic punishments which differ to some degree between the countries.

The conventions and national laws prohibiting narcotics and psychotropic drugs have not prevented the development of illicit production, trade and markets
for these substances all over the world. Narcotics have effects on the human body and mind which are unique and difficult to achieve otherwise. People who try narcotics and find the effects pleasurable often develop an urge to repeat the experience. They get hooked on the substances and develop dependency symptoms (American Psychiatric Association 2013). The symptoms are most pronounced when withdrawal sets in, which in the case of opiates, goes together with physical pain. Thus, there are always people willing to buy narcotics to alter their mental states as well as to avoid withdrawal. For those addicted to substances the need for it is much stronger than the fear of committing a crime. And the trade in narcotics is extremely profitable due to the fact that it is prohibited and has to be organised clandestinely. The drugs trade is organised transnationally and run by cartels which connect nations that produce the drugs (e.g. heroin from Afghanistan) with those with large numbers of consumers (e.g. England, Germany, France, USA).

Furthermore, addiction guarantees steady customers. On the streets illicit drugs are often sold by addicted dealers to addicted users – both are victims of the so-called war on drugs, declared by president of the USA, Richard Nixon, in 1971. Dealers and users are aware that they are committing crimes when they are selling and buying, but this does not stop them from engaging in drug dealing and drug using.

## Case study of a drug addict, part 1

Walter¹ is a man in his late forties. He finished school after nine years, got a placement in vocational training, was in an apprenticeship for three years and finished with a diploma in electro-mechanics. He then landed in a job in a medium-sized enterprise and worked there for some years. In those years his consumption of alcoholic beverages, tobacco and hashish was rather unspectacular – at least in terms of the average consumption patterns of Germans aged between 15 and 25 years (Vogt 2004; Pfeiffer-Gerschel et al. 2014).

When Walter met new friends who used heroin, he started using it as well. Shooting-up gave him a kick which he had never experienced before. Very quickly he became addicted. Some months after using heroin regularly he lost his job. To earn money to support his drug-use habit he engaged in drug dealing on the streets and, if necessary, pickpocketing and stealing goods from department stores.

For some years he was not motivated to change his lifestyle and give up drug use. But then he was caught by the police and was sentenced to prison for at least one year.

At the time when Walter had to go to prison, Germany was about to revise its policies regarding the treatment of drug addicts: they were no longer seen only as criminals but also as people with a chronic illness who needed support, counselling and treatment (for details see below).

Walter got in touch with an addiction treatment centre and a social worker who helped him to a place in a rehabilitation centre to undergo abstinence-based treatment for a year. Soon after he left the centre he relapsed and went back to the street drug milieu. In the following years he regularly visited a drop-in centre offering counselling, needle and syringe exchange and – some years later – a safe injection room. When necessary, he went on detoxification in hospitals. Eventually,
he met a woman, fell in love with her and they moved into a flat. In the following nine years they were both off drugs, held down jobs and enjoyed life together.

However, Walter missed the feelings he once got from injecting heroin. Over the years, an urge built up to go back to using heroin again. In an interview, he said: ‘When I relapsed, it was not an accident – I wanted it! And I wanted to know what happens afterwards. Do I get addicted at once or do I end up with feelings of guilt and tell myself: you are such an idiot, why did you do it?’ (Vogt 2015). Unfortunately, he relapsed at once and went straight back to his habits: cocaine or crack in the morning and in the afternoon and evening heroin to calm himself down. He soon lost his job, his girlfriend and the flat.

Still, he was lucky because he did not end up on the streets but in his mother’s house. His mother had always supported him emotionally and to some extent financially. Once again, he came into contact with social workers who told him to go into detox to get off cocaine/crack and go on a methadone maintenance programme to substitute prescription methadone for heroin.

## Markets for illicit drugs and consumers of heroin and cocaine

As mentioned in the case report, Walter uses heroin and cocaine – drugs which are illegal according to international conventions and to German drugs laws. Where do the drugs come from and who are the users?

The bulk of heroin which is sold in European countries is imported from Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Laos. In Germany, the percentage of those using heroin occasionally or habitually increased after 1970 with a peak of 200,000 addicts around the turn of the century. In the last 15 years, the number of heroin users has been decreasing steadily. On the other hand, cocaine is imported mainly from South American countries such as Bolivia, Peru and Colombia. In Germany, the percentage of those using cocaine occasionally or habitually has not changed much during the last 20 years. However, there are indications that the demand for synthetic uppers has increased heavily in the last ten years. Synthetic amphetamines have similar effects to cocaine but are much cheaper and can be produced anywhere. Cocaine, then, is the preferred drug of people who are affluent, and synthetic amphetamines are the drug of those who are poor.

In Germany today, the average consumer of illicit drugs such as heroin is in his/ her late twenties, often poor with a low level of education and poor prospects of finding a place in the workforce. Of course there is some variation in demographic characteristics of users of illicit drugs. Often, drug use starts due to peer pressure or as a way for self-medication of physical and emotional pain. However, after starting, drug-use problems may evolve at school, at work and at home. In Germany, most long-term users of heroin and other illicit drugs do not have a job; they therefore depend on welfare subsidies or on their families for financial support (Schay et al. 2013).

In western and central Europe, the annual prevalence rate of the use of illicit opiates is estimated at 0.4 per cent, for cocaine at 1 per cent, and for synthetic uppers at 0.6 per cent and increasing. Overall, the percentage of people who recently used cocaine or synthetic uppers is much higher than that of those injecting illicit opiates
(UNODC 2014). In other regions of the world including eastern and south-eastern Europe, North America and China, annual prevalence rates are much higher.

**Health problems associated with illicit drug use and the introduction of harm reduction measures**

Injecting illicit drugs is associated with severe health problems. On top of the list are unintended deaths by overdosing and blood-borne infections such as HIV, which if untreated progresses to AIDS, and Hepatitis B/C virus infections which may cause liver cancer. Cohort studies of injecting users of amphetamines, cocaine and heroin 'suggest that these drugs increase the risk of premature death, morbidity and disability' (Degenhardt and Hall 2012: 60). These risks can be reduced with harm-reduction measures instead of incarceration and treatment by abstinence as the only option (Schmid 2003).

Pressure to introduce harm-reduction measures came from all sorts of agents in Germany including a fraction of social workers active in the field of addiction who advocated programmes such as needle exchange in support of their clients. These social workers were aware that implementing harm-reduction measures did not go along easily with the principles of international treaties and national drugs laws. They also were aware that their actions could provoke conflicts with the police and – more generally – with the justice system as well as with politicians at the community, state and national level. However, until the 1990s the misery of drug addicts was so obvious that a change of strategy in dealing with them became necessary. The need for change was intensified when the numbers of HIV-infections of injecting drug users increased dramatically in the 1980s and politicians feared a spill-over into the general population. After years of struggling, social workers in favour of changes in dealing with drug addicts succeeded: drop-in centres opened their doors for drug addicts with counselling services and needle and syringe exchange programmes and soon after with safe injection facilities (Vogt and Schmid 1998). Shelters for homeless drug addicts were also set up with hygienic services etc. Social workers were involved in developing the programmes and are now running them, including disseminating messages to drug addicts regarding safer use (e.g. no shared use of needles and syringes or smoking equipment) and safer sex (using condoms when offering sex work or having sex with unknown people) (Pates and Riley 2012). In the 1990s, medical therapies were added to the measures which include methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) and – in a number of western European countries – heroin-assisted therapy (HAT). Social workers who in the 1980s and 1990s fought hard to establish a better drug treatment system are to be praised for their engagement and their stamina in this matter.

Data show that the introduction of harm-reduction measures was successful (Global Commission on Drug Policy 2014). First, at the community level as well as at the national level, the number of unintended deaths due to drug overdose decreased. Second, HIV infection rates in populations of injecting drug users decreased. Overall, the health of injecting drug users improved and their chances of living a long life have become better (Vogt 2011). Third, public nuisance
caused by people using and injecting drugs openly on the streets decreased. Thus, everybody gained from the introduction of harm-reduction measures: addicts, social workers, politicians and the public.

Harm-reduction measures spread around the world, although not all countries implemented the whole package. Full-fledged harm-reduction measures with needle exchange programmes, safe injection rooms and MMT are implemented in a number of western European countries, Australia and Canada. The USA and China adopted needle exchange programmes and MMT but not safe injection rooms. Countries such as Thailand and Russia still oppose harm-reduction measures; they are paying a high price with ever increasing HIV infection rates and overdose death rates (Global Commission on Drug Policy 2011).

## Social work in the modern German drug treatment system: the case study of a drug addict, part 2

Since the 1990s, with the nationwide implementation of harm-reduction measures, social workers in Germany have offered a wide range of services to drug addicts. These include counselling in drop-in centres and regular counselling facilities, medically supported treatment (e.g. MMT or HAT, Strang et al. 2012), drug-use reduction group treatment, outpatient and inpatient abstinence treatment (including detoxification treatment, outpatient psychotherapy, inpatient rehabilitation treatment, aftercare support etc.; for more details of the German drug treatment system cf. Vogt 2009). Social workers are involved in all parts of service provision for drug addicts, in most cases as counsellors and/or case managers (Schmid et al. 2012). While social work counsellors in addiction work more often with groups in outpatient and inpatient settings, case managers engage more in network building and helping their clients find the support and treatment institutions which best fit their needs. However, social workers can also switch from group work to single case work and to case management and back again: it all depends on their training and the needs of the clients.

To illustrate social work in addiction, we go back to the case report. As described above, Walter became a client at drop-in centres. Social workers offered him counselling services on a regular basis² but Walter came to the meetings only when he was clearly in need of help. When he got caught by police and had to go to court, his contact intensified with one of the social workers, who then became his first case manager. The latter helped him to clarify his financial obligations and his health insurance protection. The case manager also arranged a deal with the judge which allowed Walter to undergo mandatory treatment (as an alternative to imprisonment) in a rehabilitation centre.

In the centre, Walter underwent a highly structured programme including skills and work trainings, therapeutic single and group sessions and spare time activities. He took lessons in relapse prevention and learnt to identify physical and psychic signals of craving, to withstand peer pressure to take drugs and to control his emotional states better (especially aggressive impulses and feelings of frustration).

After several relapses Walter was suffering from quite a lot of health problems at the age of 40 and he thought of going on MMT. To enter a programme, he once
again needed a case manager/social worker to determine if he would benefit more
from MMT or from HAT. Walter opted for MMT; he now takes his daily dose of
methadone at his doctor's office. He attends an outpatient self-control programme
to cut down his use of cocaine and crack and has plans to start a hepatitis-C
treatment programme to improve his health. His case manager supports him with
his plans, monitors progress and gives him feedback to encourage him to pursue
his plans even in bad times when he is down and depressed.

Furthermore, Walter is looking to find a job and enter the workforce again.
Since Walter worked in IT for some years, his chances of finding a job are
relatively good but he may need some further training on the job. With support of
his case manager he may be able to find a training course which fits his needs.
Payment for the course may be taken over by the local labour agency which would
very much prefer to see Walter in the workforce than on welfare payment.
However, it will take quite some effort by his case manager and the liaison officer
at the local labour agency and himself, to find employment and secure a living.

Research studies show that methadone maintenance programmes as well as
heroin assisted treatment programmes have positive effects for heroin addicts
such as improvement of their physical health and stabilisation of their everyday
life. However, reintegration into the workforce is difficult, at least for those with
long careers of illicit drug use.

Conclusion

In West European countries, social work is deeply involved in shaping our understanding of addiction as a sickness or a way of life and in the support and treatment of people who abuse legal and illegal psychoactive substances or indulge in addictive behaviour (such as gambling, internet gaming, shopping addiction, sex addiction etc.). On the theoretical level, the excessive use of psychoactive substances is understood as an illness which cannot be treated by imprisonment but needs psychosocial and psychotherapeutic interventions. On the practical level, harm-reduction measures prevail and are implemented transnationally, although in variations.

To accomplish all this, social work in addiction is in a constant process of
professionalisation on the national level as well as on the transnational level,
resulting in relevant master's and PhD programmes being set up in institutions of
higher education in Western Europe, North America and other places around the
world. To further develop social work in addiction, the political involvement of
social workers in the ongoing transnational dialogue on addiction is needed as
well as social work involvement in inventing new treatment settings and tools for
those who develop addictive behaviours.

Notes

1. Name and details of the case have been anonymised.

2. Since the 1990s, motivational interviewing has had an ever increasing impact on the art of counselling in addiction (for more details cf. Miller and Rollnick (2013)).
References

American Psychiatric Association, 2013. *Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders*. 5th ed. Arlington: American Psychiatric Association.

Degenhardt, L., and Hall, W., 2012. 'Extent of illicit drug use and dependence, and their contribution to the global burden of disease', *The Lancet* 379(9810): 55–70.

Global Commission on Drug Policy, 2011. *War on drugs. Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy* [online]. Global Commission on Drug Policy. Available from: www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/wp-content/themes/gcdp_v1/pdf/Global_Commission_Report_English.pdf [Accessed 14 December 2015].

Global Commission on Drug Policy, 2014. *Taking control. Pathways to drug policies that work* [online]. Global Commission on Drug Policy. Available from: www.gcdpsummary2014.com/#foreword-from-the-chair [Accessed 14 December 2015].

Miller, W.R., and Rollnick, S., 2013. *Motivational interviewing. Helping people change*. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Pates, R., and Riley, D., 2012. *Harm reduction in substance use and high-risk behaviour*. London: Wiley-Blackwell.

Pfeiffer-Gerschel, T., Jakob, L., and Stumpf, D., 2014. *2014 national report (2013 data) to the EMCDDA by the Reitox National Focal Point. Germany. Drug situation 2013/2014* [online]. European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. Available from: www.dhs.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/EBDD_Jahresberichte/REITOX_Report_2014_Germany_EN.pdf [Accessed 10 January 2016].

Room, R., and Reuter, P., 2012. 'How well do international drug conventions protect public health?' *The Lancet* 379(9810): 84–91.

Schay, P., Lojewski, I., and Siegele, F., 2013. *Integrative Therapie in der Drogenhilfe. Theorie - Methoden - Praxis in der sozialen und medizinischen Rehabilitation*. 1st ed. Stuttgart, New York, Thieme.

Schmid, M., 2003. *Drogenhilfe in Deutschland. Entstehung und Entwicklung 1970-2000*. Frankfurt/Main, New York: Campus.

Schmid, M., Schu, M., and Vogt, I., 2012. *Motivational case management. Ein Manual für die Drogen- und Suchthilfe*. Heidelberg: Medhochzwei-Verlag.

Strang, J., Groshkova, T., and Metrebian, N., 2012. *New heroin-assisted treatment. EMDCCA insights*. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.

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Vogt, I., 2004. *Beratung von süchtigen Frauen und Männern*. Weinheim: Beltz Juventa.

Vogt, I., 2009. 'Drug problems, community reactions and policy changes in Frankfurt/Main', *Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy* 16(6): 512–26.

Vogt, I., ed., 2011. *Auch Süchtige altern. Probleme und Versorgung älterer Drogenabhängiger*. Frankfurt am Main: Fachhochschulverlag.

Vogt, I., 2015. *Ältere Drogenabhängige mit ihren Beschwerden und Wünschen an die Zukunft. Handlungsansätze der Sozialen Arbeit*. Weitramsdorf: ZKS-Verlag.

Vogt, I., and Schmid, M., 1998. 'Drugs in Germany and the emergence of the modern drug treatment system', in G. Hunt and H. Klingemann, eds, *Drugs, demons and delinquents. Drug treatment systems in an international perspective*. London: Sage, 145–57.
20 Drug use

Comment on the German case
study from a British perspective

John Watson

A British ‘Walter’ may in fact have a remarkably similar profile to his German peer. The drug-using career that Vogt outlines for Walter is one that many British opioid users and workers in support agencies would recognise. The neo-liberal policies of the Conservative Government of 1979–97 saw huge increases in unemployment and poverty. These social changes are often linked to the big rises in the numbers of people with heroin problems in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s (Pearson 1987; Buchanan 2004; Reuter and Stevens 2007; Watson 2013). British Walters, unemployed workers from the former heavy industries, often saw heroin as a release and a substitute for the void of poverty and the loss of identity associated with long-term unemployment (Buchanan 2004). Many of the current substance users in contact with British treatment agencies are of a similar age to Walter, having had long drug-using careers. Indeed, many of these people may have begun using in the 1980s or 1990s and have had similar periods of abstinence, controlled use and relapse. As in Germany and most of western Europe, the average age of heroin users in treatment in the UK is rising, the number of new heroin users falling, and the number of those injecting drugs is on the decline (EMCDDA 2013). However, this trend has been more gradual in the United Kingdom than many of our European partners (EMCDDA 2013; Hughes and Stevens 2010). It is also thought possible that heroin may simply have gone out of fashion, replaced to some degree by other new psychoactive substances (NPS), or legal highs. There has been evidence of an increase in people using other forms of opioids and NPS drugs (EMCDDA 2013; Power 2013). Recent surveys appear to have shown that the fall in overall drug use seen since the mid/late 1990s has levelled out, with overall drug use in Britain more or less stable in recent years (Home Office 2014). Worryingly, the latest drug-related death statistics for England and Wales have shown a sharp rise (ONS 2014). It is too early to ascertain whether this is part of a longer-term trend. It is also too soon to hypothesise whether policy changes described below will have been a factor in this sudden upsurge.

Whilst Vogt is right to point to the various international treaties that limit the scope of national drugs policies, there is perhaps more room for manoeuvre than she suggests on the issues of penalties against users and dealers and on the forms of treatment and support that are offered. Portugal is a prime example of a country that has chosen a different path, with possession becoming a civil offence (Greenwald 2009; Hughes and Stevens 2010). The UK however, in the Misuse of Drugs Act (1971), has some of
the toughest criminal penalties in the western world (HoC Science and Technology Committee 2006) and calls for Portuguese-style decriminalisation were roundly rejected in the government drugs strategy of 2010 (HM Government 2010).

However, over the years differing governments have responded flexibly to the potential harms that drugs may cause users and society. In response to the revelation that injecting drug users sharing equipment could contribute to the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus, the government of the time pursued a policy of harm reduction, setting up needle exchange schemes and promoting substitute-prescribing as an alternative to street heroin and an acknowledged way to reduce harm at individual, community and societal levels (ACMD 1988; Buchanan 2010; Watson 2013). Britain has not gone as far as some of its more innovative European neighbours (including Germany) in this regard, rejecting innovations such as drug consumption rooms, for example (HoC Science and Technology Committee 2006; HoC Select Committee on Home Affairs 2002). However, in spite of this, a policy of harm reduction was the consensus view among British policy makers until the election of the Conservative-led government in 2010 heralded a change in direction.

Since the 1980s, social workers, working in predominantly voluntary sector agencies, have been pivotal in providing psychosocial support along similar lines to those described in Vogt's case study, providing initial assessment and harm-reduction advice, psychosocial support and care co-ordination (Watson 2014). However, British drugs treatment has still been criticised as lacking a holistic focus, being more focused on individual psychological interventions and with a still dominant medical profession, instead of focusing on the root structural causes of drug use such as poverty and inequality (Buchanan 2004). It has often been social workers in voluntary agencies who have been vital in shaping specialist drugs work towards a more holistic view of drug issues. This has been in spite of a rather limited focus on drug issues in the majority of British social work programmes, where direct work with drug issues has perhaps been implicitly seen as the remit of the medical profession (Watson 2014). Research by Galvani and Forrester questioned British social workers on the amount of drugs-specific training on their qualifying programmes. The findings were quite alarming, as over a third of participants reported having had no training at all and half reported having less than half a day's training (Galvani and Forrester 2011). Overall they found that newly qualified social workers reported feeling less able to work with drug users than any other client group (Galvani and Forrester 2011). There are courses which offer specialist modules in supporting drug users, but these are unfortunately in a minority. One can only assume then that those social work specialists working with British Walters have acquired their skills and training post-qualifying, or gained their knowledge at the large number of drugs support agencies that have offered practice placements to social work students over recent decades.

The last decade did see some big increases in funding for drugs services, opening new opportunities for social workers to specialise in this field and influence the direction of drugs treatment. Most of this funding however was focused on interventions for drug users within the criminal justice system who were subject to court-sanctioned treatment orders (Buchanan 2010).
As mentioned earlier, since 2010 the United Kingdom has set on the path of potentially very radical changes in the way drug users are supported, at least in England, with as yet uncertain results. Devolution has given Scotland and Wales a large degree of autonomy over the direction of drugs treatment policy (but not in the respect of challenging the criminalisation of certain types of drugs and drug users). Drug services have seen the end of ring-fenced funding for drug treatment, with responsibility devolved to local public health bodies. These bodies have seen large cuts in their overall funding since 2010 and many may be disinclined to dedicate resources to services, seeing drug addiction as less deserving than the other issues that come under their remit. It appears that there is now uneven provision across localities with some areas seeing gaps in provision and funding (Roy and Buchanan 2015).

Other major changes will potentially impact on the range of services available. The Conservative government has increasingly focused on abstinence over harm reduction in recent years (HM Government 2010; Watson 2013). The emphasis has been on pursuing abstinence-based treatment, sometimes at the expense of the harm-reduction interventions described above. This is potentially compounded by the government's imposition of 'payment by results' (PbR) regimes, whereby some funding is withheld until agencies can demonstrate they have met certain targets, often in terms of how many clients are drugs free. The danger here, one that has already been proven to happen in other areas where PbR has taken place, is that agencies will focus their energies on the clients who are most stable as those most likely to achieve abstinence, at the expense of those with more chaotic drug use who may in fact require more intensive support (Watson 2013; Mohammadi 2014).

The recent government spending plans point to further cuts in overall spending for local public health authorities. Increasingly local agencies and commissioning bodies will take different approaches to drugs support. Some may indeed shape services in an innovative manner, taking account of local populations and issues such as poverty, migration and unemployment. Others however may choose to cut services altogether, or focus only on the most stable drug-using clients to maximise their potential funding in a time of austerity (Watson 2013; Roy and Buchanan 2015). British Walters will increasingly find the sort of services and support dependent on the local area in which they live, with some receiving holistic social work and medical support and others slipping through the net, or receiving minimal intervention. Others may find their peers receiving support, whilst they are deemed a poor investment in the age of payments by results. The British drugs policy with regard to social work and medical support is increasingly fragmented compared to that of its European neighbours. The opportunities for getting involved as social workers and taking an international, or even a national perspective are becoming increasingly rare in a time of austerity, fragmentation of services and localisation.

## References

*ACMD, 1988. *AIDS and drug misuse. Part one*. London: Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.
Buchanan, J., 2004. 'Missing Links? Problem drug use and social exclusion', *Probation Journal* (51): 387-97.

Buchanan, J., 2010. 'Drug policy under new labour 1997–2010. Prolonging the war on drugs', *Probation Journal* (57): 250–62.

EMCDDA, 2013. *European drug report. Trends and developments*. Lisbon: European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).

Galvani, S., and Forrester, D., 2011. 'How well prepared are newly qualified social workers for working with substance use issues? Findings from a national survey in England', *Social Work Education* 30(4): 422–39.

Greenwald, G., 2009. *Drug decriminalization in Portugal. Lessons for creating fair and successful drug policies*. Washington, D.C: CATO Institute.

HM Government, 2010. *Drug strategy 2010. Reducing demand, restricting supply, building recovery: Supporting people to live a drug free life*. London: Crown Publications.

HoC Science and Technology Committee, 2006. *Drug classification: Making a hash of it? Fifth report of session 2005-2006* [online]. The Stationery Office. Available from: www/publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmsselect/cmsctech/1031/1031.pdf [Accessed 10 June 2016].

HoC Select Committee on Home Affairs, 2002. *The government's drugs policy. Is it working?* [online]. Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO). Available from: www.cannabislegal.de/international/uk-home.htm [Accessed 10 January 2016].

Home Office, 2014. *Drug misuse. Findings from the 2013/2014 crime survey for England and Wales (CSEW)* [online]. Her Majesty's Government (HMG). Available from: www.gov.uk/government/publications/drug-misuse-findings-from-the-2013-to-2014-csew/drug-misuse-findings-from-the-201314-crime-survey-for-england-and-wales [Accessed 30 July 2015].

Hughes, C.E., and Stevens, A., 2010. 'What can we learn from the Portuguese decriminalisation of illicit drugs?' *British Journal of Criminology* (50): 999–1022.

Mohammadi, D., 2014. 'Addiction services in England. In need of an intervention', *The Lancet* 1(6): 421–2.

ONS, 2014. *Deaths related to drug poisoning in England and Wales* [online]. Office for National Statistics. Available from: www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_414574.pdf [Accessed 10 January 2016].

Pearson, G., 1987. 'Social deprivation, unemployment and patterns of heroin use', in N. Dorn and N. South, eds, *A land fit for heroin? Basingstoke: Macmillan, 62–94*.

Power, M., 2013. *Drugs 2.0. The web revolution that's changing how the world gets high*. London: Portobello Books.

Reuter, P., and Stevens, A., 2007. *An analysis of UK drug policy. A report by professor Peter Reuter and Alex Stevens* [online]. UK Drug Policy Commission (UKDPC). Available from: www.ukdpc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Policy%20report%20-%20An%20analysis%20of%20UK%20drug%20policy%20%28summary%29.pdf [Accessed 10 January 2016].

Roy, A., and Buchanan, J., 2015. 'The paradoxes of recovery policy. Exploring the impact of austerity and responsibilisation for the citizenship claims of people with drug problems', *Social Policy & Administration* 49(3): 1–16.

Watson, J., 2013. 'The good, the bad and the vague. Assessing emerging conservative drugs policy', *Critical Social Policy* 33(2): 285–304.

Watson, J., 2014. 'Alcohol and other drug treatment', in B. Teater, ed., *Contemporary social work practice. A handbook for students*. Maidenhead: Open University Press, 178–93.
# 21 Drug use and health related problems among former Soviet Union drug users in Israel

Considerations for social work practice

Comment on the German case study from an Israeli perspective

Richard Isralowitz and Alexander Reznik

The use of drugs – such as illicit drugs, alcohol and other addictive substances including those medically prescribed – is not a new phenomenon but one that takes on meaning and importance in relation to its social context that varies over time and location. In the case of Walter, Irmgard Vogt outlines the restriction and the possibilities of social workers dealing with drug users. The aims and the strategies differ throughout time, and various political decisions and perspectives strongly influence this field of social work.

The following chapter sheds light on the influence of gender and migration on social work with drug users. It will take a closer look at the meaning of country of origin and place of current residence for immigrant drug users.

In the late 1980s when exit policies were liberalised, millions of people left the former Soviet Union (FSU) to settle elsewhere (e.g. Israel, Germany and the United States). These immigrants, mostly from Russia and the Ukraine, came from an environment with extremely high rates of drug use as well as blood-borne viruses (HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV) and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis) (Isralowitz et al. 2013).

A review of professional literature reveals scant information about transnational drug use, risk behaviours, police reports and service utilisation (Guarino et al. 2012; Isralowitz et al. 2013). Conclusions are limited due to the poor precision results from study cohorts. Presently, Russian-speaking immigrants make up 13 per cent of Israel's population and constitute about 25 per cent of the illicit drug users in the country (Isralowitz and Reznik 2013).

## Gender and drug use differences among FSU immigrants

Since 1995, the Regional Alcohol and Drug Abuse Resources (RADAR) Center, Ben Gurion University, Israel has been researching drug use among FSU immigrants, their background characteristics, attitudes and behaviour. For the
most part, the RADAR Center’s sampling efforts have been geared to generating
‘useable knowledge’ about lifetime drug users for prevention and treatment
purposes. The primary data collection tools used by the RADAR Center have
been the Addiction Severity Index (ASI), 5th Edition; the Substance Use Survey
Institute (SUSI) developed by the RADAR Center; and the Short Acculturation
Scale (SAS). More than 1,000 FSU immigrant drug users in Israel have been
interviewed since 1995.

A comparison of FSU female and male drug users shows that females tend to be younger, married or living with a partner. They are less likely to have a criminal record resulting in a conviction, incarceration and/or parole and are in more danger of being sexually abused. Women report more chronic illness; however, their level of HIV/HCV/TB infection is similar to males. Patterns of heroin, alcohol and other drug use are similar among females and males; cannabis use is higher among males and cocaine use higher among females. Also, females are more likely than males to prefer short-term detoxification (only) as a treatment intervention. Table 21.1 provides a comparison of FSU immigrant drug users based on selected health, alcohol and drug-use patterns.

Generally, there is considerable progress toward understanding of drug-use
patterns based on gender – men and women use drugs for different reasons.
Females are more vulnerable to abuse and addiction because they become more
dependent on drugs faster and suffer the consequences sooner than males.
Generally, female drug users who have been studied make up about 20 per cent
of the heroin-addicted population receiving treatment. Female addicts tend to
sustain their addiction through illegal income-earning activities such as
prostitution, and/or their partners provide them with drugs or supply the money
necessary to purchase drugs. Regardless of how women support their addiction,
they tend to have little interest in going through processes of detoxification and
treatment. It has been reported that women who abuse drugs have problems
related to co-dependency and relations with significant others (Isralowitz and
Reznik 2009; Bryant et al. 1991; Swett et al. 1991; Fiorentine and Anglin 1996;
Bush and Kraft 2001).

The drug treatment presented by the United Nations (O'Neil and Lucas 2013) reflects a lack of gender-specific services including individual and group counselling linked to the needs of immigrants, especially women with health problems, child-care responsibilities, under- and unemployment, absence of a familial support network, and acculturation difficulties. The world of drug addiction treatment tends to be a male domain; consequently, female addicts may feel out of place in a treatment facility and reluctant to become involved with the services provided if they are not gender-specific and attuned to their cultural needs.

Results of male and female FSU immigrants over time in Israel show that drug use appears to affect acculturation. Those who use drugs before immigration tend to be less acculturated; information shows a possible link between acculturation and the type of treatment preferred by addicts regardless of gender status.

Some experts, including social workers, believe treatment of special populations
such as immigrant women may be enhanced if their particular needs are considered
<table><caption>Table 21.1 Former Soviet Union drug users in Israel: a gender comparison</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="2">Gender</th></tr><tr><th>Male<br>(n = 454)<sup>1</sup></th><th>Female<br>(n = 87)<sup>1</sup></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Mean age (SD)</td><td>33.8 (9.6)**</td><td>31.0 (7.6)**</td></tr><tr><td>Married, % (n)</td><td>24.6 (106)***</td><td>43.8 (35)***</td></tr><tr><td>Jewish, % (n)</td><td>70.8 (320)***</td><td>47.1 (40)***</td></tr><tr><td>Victim of sexual abuse, % (n)</td><td>4.0 (18)***</td><td>63.5 (53)***</td></tr><tr><td>Chronic Medical Problems, % (n)</td><td>52.6 (40)***</td><td>76.7 (66)***</td></tr><tr><td>Hepatitis C, % (n)</td><td>67.3 (304)</td><td>58.6 (51)</td></tr><tr><td>HIV/AIDS, % (n)</td><td>4.4 (20)</td><td>9.3 (8)</td></tr><tr><td>Tuberculosis, % (n)</td><td>4.0 (18)</td><td>1.2 (1)</td></tr><tr><td>Heroin Use, % (n)</td><td>91.6 (412)</td><td>94.3 (82)</td></tr><tr><td>Alcohol Use, % (n)</td><td>66.6 (299)</td><td>60.9 (53)</td></tr><tr><td>Cannabis Use, % (n)</td><td>84.4 (379)***</td><td>58.6 (51)***</td></tr><tr><td>Sedatives Use, % (n)</td><td>39.8 (174)</td><td>44.0 (37)</td></tr><tr><td>Cocaine Use, % (n)</td><td>33.1 (143)**</td><td>48.8 (42)**</td></tr><tr><td>Amphetamine Use, % (n)</td><td>15.5 (68)</td><td>15.1 (13)</td></tr><tr><td>Hallucinogens Use, % (n)</td><td>27.8 (123)</td><td>36.0 (31)</td></tr><tr><td>Inhalants Use, % (n)</td><td>6.6 (29)</td><td>6.0 (5)</td></tr><tr><td>Other Opiate Use, % (n)</td><td>49.8 (217)</td><td>48.8 (42)</td></tr><tr><td>Poly drugs Use, % (n)</td><td>86.3 (380)</td><td>85.1 (72)</td></tr><tr><td>Drug treatment,<sup>2</sup> % (n)</td><td>***</td><td>***</td></tr><tr><td>Detox only</td><td>35.5 (134)</td><td>58.1 (43)</td></tr><tr><td>Detox and other</td><td>36.1 (136)</td><td>24.3 (18)</td></tr><tr><td>Never once</td><td>28.4 (107)</td><td>17.6 (13)</td></tr></tbody></table>

Notes: **p<.01; ***p<.001 comparison of FSU females and males using t-test for means or chi square for percentages

1 up to 6 subjects in each group missing data on some variables.

2 significant differences in drug treatment by gender (from chi square for 3 × 2 table).

and met in a treatment environment (APA 1995; Kauffman and Woody 1995; Walton-Moss and McCaul 2006; Isralowitz and Reznik 2013; Bartholomew et al. 2005). However, there is not full agreement that separate programmes for female drug users based on ethnic and cultural factors are superior to mainstream efforts with respect to outcomes (Sullivan and Fleming 1997). Regardless of the treatment approach, social workers and other addiction prevention and treatment personnel need to be cognisant of ethno-specific prevention and treatment needs of immigrants through policy, programmes and services provision.
References

APA, 1995. *Practice guide for treatment of patients with substance use disorders*. Alcohol, cocaine, opioids: American Psychiatric Association.

Bartholomew, N., Courtney, K., Rowan-Szal, G.A., and Simpson, D.D., 2005. 'Sexual abuse history and treatment outcomes among women undergoing methadone treatment', *Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment* 29(3): 231–5.

Bryant, V., Eliach, J., and Green, S., 1991. 'Adapting the traditional EAP model to effectively serve battered women in the workplace', *Employee Assistance Quarterly* 6(2): 1–10.

Bush, I.R., and Kraft, M.K., 2001. 'Self-Sufficiency and Sobriety. Substance-abusing women and welfare reform', *Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions* 1(1): 41–64.

Fiorentine, R., and Anglin, M., 1996. 'More is better. Counseling participation and the effectiveness of outpatient drug treatment', *Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment* 13(4): 341–8.

Guarino, H., Moore, S.K., Marsch, L.A., and Florio, S., 2012. 'The social production of substance abuse and HIV/HCV risk. An exploratory study of opioid-using immigrants from the former Soviet Union living in New York City', *Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy* 7(2). Available from: http://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral. com/articles/10.1186/1747-597X-7-2 [Accessed 30 December 2015].

Isralowitz, R., and Reznik, A., 2009. 'Problem severity profiles of substance abusing women in therapeutic treatment facilities', *International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction* 7(2): 368–75.

Isralowitz, R., and Reznik, A., 2013. 'Former Soviet Union immigrant women. Drug use profiles and special needs', in L.A. O'Neil and J. Lucas, eds, *DAWN. Drugs and alcohol women network: Promoting a gender responsive approach to addiction*. Turin: UNICRI, 275–306.

Isralowitz, R., Reznik, A., and Peleg, T., 2013. 'Former Soviet Union immigrant illicit drug use in Israel (1989-2010). Implications for prevention and treatment policy', *Journal of Addictive Behaviors Therapy & Rehabilitation* 2(1): 1–2.

Kauffman, J., and Woody, G., 1995. *Matching treatment to patient needs in opioid substitution therapy. Treatment improvement protocol (TIP) Series* [online]. Department of Health and Social Services (DHHS). Available from: www.taadas.org/publications/prodimages/TIP%2020.pdf [Accessed 10 January 2016].

O'Neil, L.A., and Lucas, J., eds, 2013. *DAWN. Drugs and alcohol women network: Promoting a gender responsive approach to addiction*. Turin: UNICRI.

Sullivan, E., and Fleming, M., 1997. *A guide to substance abuse for primary care clinicians*. Washington, D.C: Department of Health and Social Services (DHHS).

Swett, C., Surrey, J., Compaine, A., and Chaves, R., 1991. 'High rates of alcohol use and history of physical and sexual abuse among women outpatients', *The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse* 17(1): 49–60.

Walton-Moss, B., and McCaul, M., 2006. 'Factors associated with lifetime history of drug treatment among substance dependent women', *Addictive Behaviors* 31(2): 246–53.
22 An exploration of issues of
culture and diversity within
England's statutory child
protection system

Adrian Braithwaite and Sarah Cresswell

Headlines in the UK tell us that asylum seekers are flocking to the UK every year. However, do the facts bear this out? Not according to the Red Cross: of the 13 million refugees worldwide, it was estimated that there were only 126,000 in the UK in 2014, just 0.19 per cent of the UK population (British Red Cross 2014). When considering asylum and immigration issues within the UK it is worth considering the historical context of the Commonwealth. Following the Second World War, when most former colonies were granted independence, the majority of immigration to the UK was from former or remaining colonies. The introduction of the British Nationality Act 1948 enabled subjects of the Commonwealth to enter the UK without the need for a visa. Later legislation imposed immigration restrictions and the Immigration Acts of the 1960s, '70s and '80s significantly reduced citizenship rights for people from the Commonwealth, particularly the Caribbean, the Indian subcontinent and Africa (Hayes 2004: 14). However, Commonwealth subjects can still make claims for asylum under the 1951 Convention.

Migration is a contemporary social work issue which transcends national boundaries: there are overlapping issues of diversity, culture, lifestyle and the right to family life, as well as socio-economic factors. Transnational knowledge and strategies need to be developed to recognise and balance individual and cultural rights. This case study considers issues of statutory child protection within the context of diversity and cultural issues embedded within the state, where the right to family life is balanced against the rights of the child to be protected. This case study is an amalgamation of factual cases we worked on whilst practising as social workers in England.

The case study considers a Congolese family who obtain refugee status via the Resettlement Programme, which is also known as the Gateway Protection Programme. This is the United Kingdom's contribution to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) global resettlement programme. The British government works in partnership with the UNHCR to identify refugees considered particularly vulnerable and eligible under the 1951 Convention relating to the status of refugees; the Resettlement Programme accepts 1,000 people a year. In 2014, the UK received a total of only 31,400 asylum applications; of these only 41 per cent were granted asylum as an initial decision, reflecting how difficult it is to secure asylum within the UK (British Red Cross 2014).
The case study family consists of the following members:

* Rose Kombo, mother, 35 years

* Reine Kombo, daughter, 12 years

* Gautier Kombo, son, 6 years

* Alban Kombo, son, 3 months

## Prior to arrival in the UK

Rose and her family fled to Rwanda from the Democratic Republic of the Congo due to unrest. They then resided in a refugee camp for several months and were subsequently identified by UNHCR field officers as being particularly vulnerable. Rose was ill and suffered from a heart problem, Reine was at an age where she could be sexually exploited and the family had to meet the care needs of Alban. The children's father died in the conflict and Reine provided care for all the family while in the camp.

Under the Resettlement Programme they were accepted as refugees and, as such, are provided indefinite leave to remain in the UK (Refugee Council 2015). Once indefinite leave to remain has been granted, refugees have similar rights to UK citizens. The Resettlement Programme is delivered by a partnership of participating local authorities and non-governmental organisations, such as the Refugee Council and Refugee Action. Refugees have access to social housing or private tenancies through the provision of housing benefit. Rose and her family were housed in a small property in an area of low-demand housing. Refugees can also claim social benefits to provide an income and they have access to health care. Under the Resettlement Programme family status, relationships and dependency are assessed (HGM 2010).

In a refugee camp Rose would have focused primarily on survival and basic necessities. Now that Rose has achieved refugee status life is still difficult but not at a survival level. Rose receives treatment for her heart problem and it emerges that she is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), following being raped and witnessing her husband being tortured and murdered as they made their way to the camp. Through the Refugee Council, Rose is referred to therapeutic services for further support. However, a study (MIND 2009) identifies mental health services to refugees as being largely deficient and inaccessible to asylum seekers, which can cause them to be more marginalised (McColl and Johnson 2006). Other studies (McKenzie et al. 2007) found that the asylum seeking process is so stressful that it can exacerbate the symptoms of anyone with a mental health problem.

Bhugra and Jones (2001) identify that PTSD can be triggered by 'cultural bereavement', as asylum seekers will have left a way of life that is familiar to them to begin again in a new country with a way of life and customs that are very different (Collett 2004: 82). However, there is little in the way of statistics to measure the impact of conditions such as PTSD on asylum seekers. The interrogative approach of the entry interview by the UK Visas and Immigration
Agency would be a nerve-wracking experience, considering the consequences should the asylum application be turned down. Asylum seekers will be wary of state officials due to previous negative experiences. Interviews will also stir memories and emotions of unpleasant events and previous statements will be cross-examined. Asylum seekers receive little in the way of support and the few agencies which can provide support (such as the Haven Project in Hull) are stretched to capacity.

## Arrival in the UK

The children attend local schools and slowly begin the process of integration. However, the family comes to the attention of the local authority, as 12-year-old Reine is frequently late or has unauthorised absences from school. The school makes a referral to the Children and Young People's Services, which is the local authority department responsible for assessing and implementing state intervention. A multi-agency approach to working with families is a key feature of supporting children and meeting care and protection needs. Past investigations, including enquiries into the circumstances of child deaths, have consistently identified the failure of agencies to share information effectively in the safeguarding of children (HMSO 1974; Laming 2003; Department for Education 2008). Recommendations from the Laming Report (2003) led to the introduction of the Children Act 2004 which placed a duty on agencies to share information and promote multi-agency working and shared responsibilities between relevant stakeholders in the well-being of children. However, it is understandable that such interest by the state would cause Rose and her family concern. Asylum seekers will not be familiar with the assessment process. Asylum seekers' first experience of UK officials will possibly be the UK Visa and Immigration Agency, so fear and suspicion regarding the consequences of assessment would be understandable.

The principal piece of legislation relating to state intervention in meeting children's needs is the Children Act 1989. This act largely governs, and provides a baseline for the duties social workers have in regard to meeting children's care and protection needs (Brayne *et al.* 2013). The underlying philosophy of the Children Act 1989 is that the welfare of the child is the paramount consideration; this principle is applied specifically to legal proceedings, but also guides social workers when working with children and young people.

A social worker undertakes an assessment using the *National Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families* (DoH 2000). In most authorities, assessment will now include aspects of the Strengthening Families Approach which was advocated in Eileen Munro's review of Child Protection (Munro 2011). However, language is a barrier, and some knowledge of the Congolese culture is also needed. The use of interpreters can be problematic and should be approached with caution. There are issues regarding what exactly is being said and also regarding confidentiality; the family are not likely to want a third party to be privy to their situation, which may be in part due to feelings of shame. The effective use of an interpreter relies on trust, honesty and transparency.
All this impacts on the working relationship and assessment of the family's need. Rose is initially mistrustful by what she perceives as sudden interest by the state in her family life; however, she is also supported by a worker from the Refugee Council who explains why the social worker is visiting. This support is invaluable in helping Rose understand some of the concerns expressed by the social worker and the process of assessment. Furthermore, what needs to be considered in the assessment is the impact of factors which can affect any family in the UK, such as poverty, housing and health, as not all issues are related to asylum and culture.

In the UK health care and advice are universal services offered by a health visitor until the child reaches the age of five. Beyond this, health advice is given by the school nurse in the school that the child attends. The health visitor allocated to the Kombo family has also expressed concerns about Alban's care, as Reine is undertaking much of this. In the UK this would be contrary to the social mores, whereby a child of Reine's age should be concentrating on her school work, not caring for her sibling. The health visitor has also expressed concerns about different (hygienic) standards concerning the baby's nutrition and about the children's safety, as she has observed both children handling large, sharp kitchen knives and pans of boiling water while preparing food.

There follows a discussion about attempting to apply some boundaries for Gautier, who is frequently playing out unsupervised, and who has a faint mark on the back of his legs, observable by those at school. He says that Rose hit him with her open hand when he did not comply with her wishes. Via the interpreter, he discloses witnessing the brutal murder of his mother and insists that Rose is an 'aunt' but it is unclear if she is a blood relative or a friend. Rose admits to hitting Gautier and explains that this is acceptable in their culture. She struggles to understand how this can be damaging, especially given the hardships the family endured in the refugee camp. She also dismisses the concerns of the health visitor about her parenting of Alban and Reine taking on too much responsibility due to Rose's ill health. However, she agrees to work with the social worker and, via an interpreter, some progress is made. It is clear that Rose wants and needs support.

## Cultural conflicts and conflicting norms

Under the Children Act 1989 all children are protected and entitled to services that meet their needs. Section 47 of the 1989 Act places a duty on local authorities to investigate if there is reasonable cause to suspect that a child is suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm. Social work intervention is based on a holistic assessment of the young person's situation and diversity and cultural issues would form part of this assessment. Assessment is a key feature of UK social work intervention (Parker and Bradley 2014).

Rose's experience of caring for her children is within Congolese cultural norms, and practices around parenting and providing care will be, perhaps, very different to what is considered the norm within the UK. These are value-laden issues that require social workers to have skills of cultural competence when delivering support to families. The overarching framework for professional social work
development within the UK is the Professional Capabilities Framework (The British Association of Social Workers). One domain within the framework is diversity and social workers develop a professional understanding of the multi-dimensional nature of diversity and how oppression, marginalisation and alienation can impact on service user experience, as well as an understanding of how family life and social expectations have been shaped by culture. Although it is important to develop cultural competency and awareness, every child has the right to be protected. Being culturally competent promotes an understanding of childcare norms within diverse contexts. Practitioners must be able to challenge abusive behaviour without being labelled discriminatory, or conversely, must not fail to act for fear of being accused of being discriminatory. The family has complex circumstances and making use of an assessment tool such as the Culturagram would provide information concerning values in relation to family life, education and employment (Congress and Kung 2013; Parker and Bradley 2014). A Culturagram can also be used to take into account the impact of the individual's culture and would need to take into account such issues as the reasons for their seeking asylum, their language, religious beliefs and customs around health and child-rearing practices. Kohli (2006) states that some asylum seekers may find even completing a genogram a very painful process, given that many family members may be dead or missing. Therefore any assessment needs to be undertaken very sensitively and Heavy *et al*. (2007) also allude to this, advocating the use of very skilled practitioners to help families recover from the trauma of their past, as well as the loss of family and friends.

In the case of the Kombo family situation, the social worker discusses with her manager the possibility of taking the case to an Initial Child Protection Conference, which would decide whether the children should be made the subject of a Child Protection Plan. However, the social worker recognises the cultural issues, the complexity of the case and Rose's willingness to work with professionals (Department of Education 2015). Furthermore, the physical assault was viewed as minor, as there was no lasting mark or injury. A decision is made to support the family under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989, which places a general duty on the local authority to ensure a child's needs are met. This highlights, within social work support and decision making, the complex interplay of skills, knowledge and values operating within a legislative framework. The Children Act 2004 requires cooperation and a multi-agency approach to support the family including regular meetings (every 4-6 weeks), attended by Rose and by members of relevant agencies involved in the support of the family, such as the social worker, health visitor, school nurse, educational professionals, the Refugee Council support worker, mental health services and a nursery nurse. The family situation is assessed and a child-in-need plan is put together, which includes parenting advice for Rose, a full assessment of her physical and mental health and individual work for Reine and Gautier to consider their wishes and feelings. A nursery place is also funded by the local authority for Alban, two days a week, with out-of-school clubs for Reine and Gautier.

Part of the assessment is that the social worker takes into account the wishes and feelings of the children (Munro 2011), which shows that the children have an
emotionally warm relationship with Rose. This includes Gautier, who is receiving support from the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) due to acting out some of the atrocities he has witnessed. However, he makes good progress and Reine, too, begins to behave more as a child rather than a young carer. Rose has also been supported in applying for a Special Guardianship Order for Gautier, as it has been impossible to establish whether his parents or other relatives are alive and in a position to take care of him. The application is supported by the local authority, with a report that confidently states that Gautier has a very good relationship with Rose and her children and wishes to remain in their care.

## Conclusion

The Kombo family's positive outcome is largely due to the fact that they were given refugee status and selected from the refugee camps under the Resettlement Programme. Asylum seekers who arrive in the UK not on the programme are likely to have a much more protracted wait whilst their claims are assessed. The regulations for entry into the UK as asylum seekers and refugees are complex and subject to constant change. Whilst support does exist, it is set at a minimal level and difficult to access. Organisations such as the Refugee Council and local charities such as the Asylum Seekers & Refugees of Kingston upon Hull (ARKH) provide invaluable aid to people already marginalised by their circumstances.

Social workers will be regarded as agents of the state and asylum seekers will be acutely aware of this power differential. Also, workers will be active participants in a society to which asylum seekers only have limited access, due to constraints placed on them by the state. Asylum seekers will likely be suspicious of state officials and will, perhaps, be reluctant to discuss sensitive or traumatic issues. It is entirely probable within the case scenario that Rose is unable to discuss fully what has happened, as what has occurred may be perceived as shameful within her culture. This concern about shame would also be a barrier to the use of interpreters, as Rose may feel unable to discuss the matter with people within her culture. Social workers need to work on cultural competence and to develop trust within the professional relationship. An ability to advocate for family rights and challenge organisational discrimination, recognising the power within the social work role, is important. These qualities are already stated within the PCF and are essential when working with asylum seekers and refugees.

## References

* Bhugra, D., and Jones, P., 2001. 'Migration and mental illness', *Advances in Psychiatric Treatment* 7: 216–23. Available from: http://apt.rcpsych.org/content/aptrcpsych/7/3/216.full.pdf [Accessed 10 January 2016].

* Brayne, H., Carr, H., and Goosey, D., 2013. *Law for social workers*. 13th ed. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
British Red Cross, 2014. *Refugee facts and figures* [online]. British Red Cross. Available from: www.redcross.org.uk/What-we-do/Refugee-support/Refugee-facts-and-figures [Accessed 20 July 2015].

Collett, J., 2004. 'Immigration is a social work issue', in D. Hayes and B. Humphries, eds, *Social work, immigration and asylum debates. Dilemmas and ethical issues for social work and social care practice*. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 77–95.

Congress, E., and Kung, W., 2013. 'Using the culturagram to assess and empower culturally diverse families', in E. Congress and M. Gonzalez, eds, *Multicultural perspectives in working with families*. New York: Springer Publishing Company, 1–17.

Department for Education, 2008. *Haringey local safeguarding children board: first serious case review - child A* [online]. Available from: www.haringeylscb.org/sites/haringeylscb/files/executive_summary_peter_final.pdf [Accessed 10 January 2016].

Department of Education, 2015. *Working together to safeguard children. A guide to inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children* [online]. Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO). Available from: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/419595/Working>Together_to_Safeguard_Children.pdf [Accessed 10 January 2016].

DoH, Department of Health, 2000. *Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families* [online]. Available from: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130401151715/www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/Framework%20for%20the%20assessment%20of%20children%20in%20need%20and%20their%20families.pdf [Accessed 10 January 2016].

Hayes, D., 2004. 'History and context. The impact of immigration control on welfare delivery', in D. Hayes and B. Humphries, eds, *Social work, immigration and asylum debates. Dilemmas and ethical issues for social work and social care practice*. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 11–28.

Heapy, G., Ehntholt, K., and Sclare, I., 2007. 'Groupwork with unaccompanied young women', in R. Kohli and F. Mitchell, eds, *Working with unaccompanied asylum seeking children. Issues for policy and practice*. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 76–94.

HGM, 2010. *Gateway protection programme* [online]. Her Majesty's Government. Available from: www.gov.uk/government/publications/gateway-protectionprogramme-information-for-organisations/gateway-protection-programme [Accessed 10 August 2015].

HMSO, 1974. *Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Care and Supervision Provided in Relation to Maria Colwell*. London: Department of Health and Social Security.

Kohli, R., 2006. 'The comfort of strangers. Social work practice with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people in the UK', *Child and Family Social Work* 11(1): 1–10.

Laming, H., 2003. *The Victoria Climbié inquiry report. Cm 5730*. London: The Stationery Office.

McColl, H., and Johnson, S., 2006. 'Characteristics and needs of refugees and asylum-seekers in contact with London community mental health teams. A descriptive investigation', *Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology* 41(10): 789–95.

McKenzie, K., McColl, H., and Bhui, K., 2007. *Improving services for refugees and asylum-seekers. Position statement*. Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Munro, E., 2011. *The Munro review of child protection. A child centred system*. London: HMSO.

Parker, J., and Bradley, G., 2014. *Social work practice*. Exeter: Learning Matters.

Refugee Council, 2015. Resettlement programme. Available from: www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/what_we_do/refugee_services/resettlement_programme [Accessed 10 January 2016].

The British Association of Social Workers. *Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF)* [online]. Available from: www.basw.co.uk/pcf/ [Accessed 10 January 2016].
## 23 Refugee resettlement and child protection in France

### Comment on the British case study from a French perspective

Nathalie Durand-Le Zallic

Since the framework agreement was signed in 2008 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), France has been examining, each year, about a hundred refugee resettlement files (these numbers will increase in 2015/2016, in particular in relation to Syrian refugees).

The cases of persons under protection of UNHCR and to be resettled in France are selected by the French Ministry of the Interior. The reception of refugees to be resettled is coordinated by the French Office for Immigration and Integration (OFII). This public institution under the authority of the Ministry for Immigration is involved in the transfer and initial reception of refugees in France. It collects information on the refugees to be resettled through the Ministry of the Interior and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and transmits them to the reception agencies.

The refugees arrive in France with an asylum visa or are admitted on humanitarian grounds. They are directed towards one of the five home institutions offering accommodation or housing. These operators are, however, present only in some parts of the country: Belfort, Les Deux Sevres, Haute Loire, the Isle of France, the Rhone, the Atlantic Pyrenees. The speed of rehousing and the support by the General Councils (elected body of the ‘Département’) remains variable from one department to another.

In the case study presented it is stated that Rose did not have the choice of place of residence. In France the recent Law Reform on Asylum (29 July 2015) also advocates the establishment of a policy of mandatory accommodation for those who obtain refugee status, similar to the UK.

As part of a humanitarian admission, determination of refugee status depends on the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA). In this case, OFPRA is notified of the people concerned immediately upon their arrival at the airport. Thus Rose and her children could be directly eligible to obtain a residence permit – which is not the case for the majority of refugees resettled in France admitted outside special operations and having arrived under common law for asylum seekers for whom administrative procedures are much more tedious (see Mellon-Mustafa and Schleyer-Lindenmann, Chapter 16). The rapid reception and obtaining of a ten-year resident card would have allowed Rose and her children in France to benefit from access to universal health coverage, the active solidarity income, family benefits, access to employment etc.
Concerning child protection in France, assistance mechanisms and services to the endangered child apply to all minors regardless of their nationality or the nationality of their parents. Child protection is governed by the law of 5 March 2007. Like the Children Act 1989 in England, the 2007 law emphasises the child's interest and places him/her at the heart of the protection mechanisms through management that seeks to be adaptive and varied. The administrative protection is entrusted to the General (Departmental) Council while the judicial protection of minors falls under the State administration (Ministry of Justice). It is implemented by the public prosecutor and the juvenile judge. The establishment of administrative protection requires the agreement of the family. This is not the case in the context of judicial measures when a danger to the child is recognised (Article 375 of the Civil Code).

In this case study, the teaching staff at Reine's school address a report to the Children's and Young Persons' Services (the local authority); in France this would be the Departmental Houses of Solidarity. This report describes 'alarming information',¹ a term which points to the violation of the child's rights, and would be subject to peer review. Indeed, since the 2007 law in France, this information is processed in a specific framework: in departmental cells for the collection, processing and evaluation of such information. The evaluation is conducted by a multidisciplinary team coming from different institutions, with expertise in the social, educational, and medical fields. Associations and police services can also cooperate in this evaluation. However, assessment tools such as the 'looking after children' (LAC programme) in England have no equivalent in France and cultural characteristics are not systematically included in these evaluation procedures.

The 'Good Practice Guide', published by the Ministry of Health and Solidarity, poses the basic principles and key steps necessary for the situation assessment and aims to provide, as stated in its preamble, 'a national reference framework to the professionals responsible for evaluating individual situations involving minors' (Ministère de la Santé et des Solidarités 2007: 1), but without mentioning explicitly the interest of the intercultural approach.

Margalit Cohen-Emerique, doctor of psychology, expert in intercultural communication and relationships, highlights in her work (Cohen-Emerique 2000, 2015) that the development of the socio-educational practices concerning child protection in France was not accompanied by a specific intercultural approach evaluation of child abuse. Medical and psychosocial workers, who increasingly face challenges, especially in their work with migrants, have the opportunity to integrate an intercultural perspective, mainly through the ethno-psychiatric approach in order to refine their assessments. These intercultural consultations can be conducted in the homes of families or in a place selected by them.

The management of the family situation of Rose would probably be approached somewhat differently in France by social workers or socio-medical actors with some specificities related to different institutional logics, methodologies and means of intervention. Regarding child protection several strategies/pathways could be considered under two frameworks;
1 As part of administrative protection:

Several monitoring and guidance actions could be implemented under condition that Rose accepts them and works with various actors in the interest of the children, e.g.

* Educational activities at the home or place of residence of the family with social intervention teams, socio-medical and medical departmental services;

* Reine and Gautier could receive psychological care;

* Intervention by maternal and child health services (team of physicians, nurses, psychologists) of the General Council with medical monitoring for Gautier and Alban (medical care from 0 to 6 years);

* Social monitoring for Rose with orientation towards medical and psychological care.

2 In the context of judicial protection (Article 375 of the Civil Code):²
In view of the information gathered concerning the minors (dropping out of school for Reine, care of the baby by the adolescent girl, bruises observed on Gautier who is described as without supervision, the absence of maternal bonds with Rose) and concerning Rose (important medical problems, traumatic experiences), in France the situation would probably have produced a court report to the Prosecutor of the Republic by the General Council's services. In this case, the juvenile judge whose mission is to remedy dangerous situations involving minors, may impose judicial investigative measures (e.g. medical or psychological expert investigation of the child conducted by medical experts from courts).

And/or put in place educational support measures to provide help and support to the family such as:

* educational measures in the home environment;

* children's home monitoring by social workers or medico-social workers in the framework of a judicial mandate;

* keeping the juvenile judge regularly informed of the development of the minor's situation.

This direction would undoubtedly have been proposed for the three children in the case study presented. Depending on the evolution of the situation and evaluation by the intervening social workers, the juvenile judge could assign (or not) Gautier to Rose as a trusted third party.

Lastly, placement in a foster care home or an institution like an orphanage could be considered as a last resort, as the parent-child relationship should be maintained as long as possible.

Be it in the administrative or judicial framework, the systematic intervention of an interpreter for all parties implied would have been difficult due to lack of material means. A referral to ethno-psychiatric consultations and/or an ethno-clinical mediation would have been left up to the decision of the social services.

Very recently legislative and regulatory measures, and measures supporting practice³ have been designed to further improve the organisation of child protection, which still lacks financial resources, manpower and trained staff. In a
context where institutional functioning sometimes tends to dominate the field,
initial and continuous training, research, and the sharing of knowledge and
experience of professional practices may trigger changes, including promoting the
refocusing of the intervention on the understanding of the family situation and a
co-construction with families, whenever possible.

Notes

1 Definition of alarming information (Law of 5 March 2007): ‘any information, including medical, likely to raise concerns that a child is in danger or risk of danger, could need help, and must be transmitted at the departmental cell for evaluation and action’.

2 Article 375 of the Civil Code: ‘If the health, safety or morals of an un-emancipated minor are in danger or if the conditions of his education or his physical, emotional, intellectual and social development are seriously compromised, educational assistance measures may be ordered by Justice at the request of the father and mother jointly, or one of them, the person or service to which the child has been trusted, or the guardian, or the minor himself or the public prosecutor.’

3 Law Proposal on Child Protection (18 November 2015) and Roadmap for child protection (2015–2017) of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health of Women’s Rights, Ministère des Affaires Sociales de la Santé et des Droits des Femmes.

References

Cohen-Emerique, M., 2000. ‘Carmel Camilleri et la recherche-action. La maltraitance de l’enfant dans les familles en situation interculturelle’, in J. Costa-Lascoux, M.A. Hily, and G. Vermès, eds, *Pluralité des cultures et dynamiques identitaires. Hommage à Carmel Camilleri*. Paris: L’Harmattan, 237–52.

Cohen-Emerique, M., 2015. *Pour une approche interculturelle. Théories et pratiques*. 2nd ed. Rennes: Presses de l'EHESP.

Ministère de la Santé et des Solidarités, 2007. *Guide de la cellule départementale de recueil, de traitement et d'évaluation* [online]. Ministère de la Santé et des Solidarités. Available from: www.social-sante.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/Guide_Cellule depart_3_BAT-3. pdf [Accessed 27 November 2015].

Ministère des Affaires sociales de la Santé et des Droits des femmes [online]. Available
from: www.social-sante.gouv.fr [Accessed 10 January 2016].
## 24 Child protection in a multicultural context

### Comment on the British case study from an Israeli perspective

Yochay Nadan

The body of knowledge concerned with risk, well-being and protection is founded primarily on universal developmental theories such as attachment theory (Bowlby 1988), which were formulated from empirical research and clinical experience largely conducted in Western countries (Korbin 1981; Henrich et al. 2010). These theories, answering such questions as ‘What is proper parenting?’ and ‘What constitutes proper treatment of a child?’ owe their primacy to Western values, worldviews and norms. They are also the source from which definitions of risk, abuse and neglect are derived.

The cross-cultural literature, however, is fraught with examples of child-rearing practices that can be classified in different ways – either as normative, abusive or neglectful – by different cultural groups. It is well known that some minority groups in multicultural societies might define certain parenting roles and practices as normative, even though they run counter to the pervasive majority views in the hegemonic culture (Korbin 1991). This gap in perception is evident within welfare agencies and child protection services, between professionals who underwent Western professional socialisation and the parents from minority groups, as demonstrated in the case study of a Congolese family in the UK (see Braithwaite and Cresswell, Chapter 22). Such differences are often a source of misunderstanding and tension that is ultimately not in the child’s best interests. In many cases, solutions proposed by social workers tend to be neither acceptable nor appreciated by parents, who typically fail to implement them (Rosenthal and Roer-Strier 2001).

### Culturally competent child protection practice

‘Cultural competence’ is frequently defined as ‘a set of congruent behaviours, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals and enable the system, agency, or those professionals to work effectively in cross-cultural situations’ (Cross et al. 1989: iv; NASW 2001, 2007).

Applying cultural competence when working in the field of child protection is no easy task. When we take as an example the above-mentioned case of the Congolese asylum seeker’s family in the UK, many questions arise: should the social worker accept corporal punishment because it is described as a normative Congolese child-rearing practice? Or should they educate the mother regarding
the laws in the UK as well as the long-term and potentially damaging psychological consequences of physical abuse? Or should the mother be given advice, for example, on the importance of mentally stimulating a child and some techniques for doing so? What should be the threshold that would make the social worker recommend an out-of-home placement? Which intervention would be considered more culturally competent?

Korbin and Spilsbury (1999) argue that culturally competent child protection practices avoid both unmoderated ethnocentrism and unmoderated cultural relativism. An unmoderated ethnocentric position imposes a single standard on child care practices. It attempts to impose the beliefs and behaviours of one group (the hegemonic group) on minority populations. Besides being morally and ethically problematic, such an approach was found to be counterproductive for effective child protection. In addition, it runs the risk of viewing normative cultural practices as abuse or neglect (a false positive). Conversely, an unmoderated relativist position suspends all standards and accepts all parental behaviours as 'culture'. Therefore, it runs the risk of misidentification of abuse or neglect as cultural practice (a false negative). A behaviour that can be identified as part of a cultural heritage does not necessarily mean that it is 'good' for children. In addition, culture cannot be used as an excuse for abuse or neglect. Exclusive reliance on either position fails to meet the objective of cultural competence (Korbin and Spilsbury 1999).

With the intention of trying to enhance their cultural competence, professionals tend to focus on gaining and applying knowledge about cultures. Such knowledge usually concerns a specific cultural or ethnic group, most often those with which their services work. It includes knowledge of that group's history, norms, traditional cultural characteristics, child-rearing practices and discipline, values, gestures, communication styles, behaviours, attitudes, help-seeking patterns and the group's explanatory models of their problems (Nadan 2014). Gaining this knowledge is indeed an important element of cultural competence. However, such an essentialist knowledge tends to ignore intra-cultural diversity, as well as the impact of other crucial contextual factors besides culture (e.g. migration, poverty, minority status). It is imperative, especially in the field of child protection, to go beyond those essentialist and homogenic cultural descriptions and to be aware of the continuum of acceptable and unacceptable parental behaviours within a particular culture. Such a perspective can be helpful in differentiating cultural practices from maltreatment (Korbin 2003).

Applying cultural competence to child protection would also mean adopting and giving priority to a strengths-based approach (Saleebey 1996) over a deficiency approach. This means that practitioners focus not only on searching for markers of deviant behaviours that can be labelled as abuse or neglect, but at the same time and equally importantly they focus on specific cultural strengths and protective factors that can mitigate risk for children (Korbin and Spilsbury 1999).

Research can be a crucial tool for developing knowledge on acceptable and unacceptable parental behaviours within a culture, as well as gaining insight into cultural risk and protective factors. For example, with my research group we are
currently conducting a research project at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that examines the Jewish Ultra-Orthodox community's perceptions of risk and protection with regard to children, and the local ways in which the concepts of 'risk', 'neglect' and 'abuse' are defined by people from the community. The study aims to develop a culturally informed definition of risk and protection as perceived by the Ultra-Orthodox community, to serve as a basis for developing a relevant assessment tool for professionals working with children and families, as well as programmes for prevention and intervention.

To grasp the complexity of culture, context and maltreatment and to avoid essentialising cultures, such research should adopt an intersectionality-driven framework (Nadan et al. 2015). Such an approach seeks to understand how multiple identities such as gender, race and socioeconomic status simultaneously shape human experience at the individual level, through interlocking systems of bias and inequality that exist at the macro socio-structural level. Applying insights gained from such research into practice can promote culturally competent prevention and intervention programmes and encourage practitioners and services to operate from a more ethical and anti-oppressive position when working with minority groups (Nadan 2014).

## Reflectivity: zooming out and looking inwards

The tension between ethnocentrism and relativism when aspiring to work in a more culturally competent manner and to protect children in cross-cultural situations can be bridged through critical reflectivity. One aspect of this would be 'zooming out' – looking beyond 'culture' at other, broader contextual elements, especially concerning the situation of disadvantaged minority groups in society, who live under personal, institutional, legal and structural forces that restrict, oppress, humiliate and prevent them from obtaining equal access to resources and opportunities (Sisneros et al. 2008). When working with families where children are at risk of abuse or neglect, such a broader view can foster deeper understanding of the complexity of their situation, as well as empathy rather than judgemental attitudes.

Another aspect of critical reflectivity is related to practitioners' exploration of their own identities and (largely privileged) social positions, and the ways in which these shape their assumptions, attitudes and images with regard to the 'other' (Kondart 1999; Nylund 2006; Abrams and Gibson 2007; Nadan 2016). Such reflection can facilitate acknowledgement of the ways in which fears, ignorance and the '-isms' (racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, heterosexism, ageism, classism, etc.) influence practitioners' attitudes, beliefs and feelings in both their personal and professional lives (NASW 2001; Latting 1990). Such exploration urges a shift in attention from the 'other' to the Self and calls for the exploration of the power relations and privileges involved in the construction of the 'other' (Kondart 1999; Jeyasingham 2012).

Exploring the Self with regard to the 'other' is extremely important in the field of child protection, because minority children are disproportionately represented in child welfare systems, as documented in many countries around the world