Practising Green Social Work

Practicing Green Social Work provides a holistic paradigm for practice that positions the person in their environment as situated in their social, cultural and physical ecosystems.

Meeting this objective requires a transdisciplinary, coproduction-based approach to devise holistic, coproduced solutions to current social and ecological problems. Key in this regard is climate change with its associated extreme weather events. Human behaviour has produced a climate crisis that social workers are likely to ignore in their daily practice. This book argues that climate change and other ecological disasters are everyone’s business, and social workers and related professionals are not excluded. Through examining practitioners’ responses to climate change and other ecological disasters and how they can better prepare themselves to understand and then intervene appropriately, it identifies what knowledge, skills and training they require to become effective eco-practitioners who can intervene in disaster situations holistically, effectively, and confidently.

Drawing on case examples in which practitioners have used green social work theory in their usual routines of practice and in new challenging situations associated with diverse disasters, especially climate change and extreme weather events, this book will be of interest to all social work scholars, students and practitioners as well as emergency workers interested in working in transdisciplinary, multi-agency settings and employing coproduction techniques to engage local residents.