Theoretical Framework (s) for Managing Crises and Natural Disasters
Disaster Prevention and Mitigation
Disaster prevention and mitigation are sustained actions that reduce the risk of the disaster or crisis or minimize potential negative consequences suffered by the people of Longley and Ruby Lake. According to Eid and Arnout (2020), the disaster prevention and mitigation phase includes actions taken to reduce or prevent the impact, cause, and consequences of a disaster or crisis. Therefore, disaster prevention and mitigation involve engaging in activities that intend to avoid or deter possible adverse impacts through action taken in advance and activities aimed at offering protection from the occurrence of a crisis or disaster. Furthermore, disaster prevention and mitigation examples are digging water channels to redirect water and planting vegetation to absorb water.
Disaster Preparedness
Disaster preparedness includes training, planning and educational activities for events that cannot be mitigated. Disaster preparedness examples include making a supply list of crucial items in a disaster. Additionally, developing disaster preparedness plans for where to go, what to do, or who to call in a disaster or crisis. According to Paton (2019a), disaster preparedness involves taking action to prepare for an emergency. For example, the organization tries to understand better how a flood disaster might affect productivity. Furthermore, the organization offers appropriate education while placing preparedness measures into place. Consequently, disaster preparedness may include drills, hosting a training, education, and full-scale exercise on disaster preparedness.
Disaster Response
Disaster response is protecting property and people in the wake of disaster, emergency or crisis. For instance, the disaster response phase happens in the disaster’s immediate aftermath. The organization emphasizes addressing direct threats to the people of Longley and Ruby Lake. Therefore, the occupants’ well-being and safety greatly depend on their preparedness before a flood disaster strikes. According to Abunyewah et al. (2018), the disaster response phase occurs in the disaster’s immediate aftermath; well-being and personal safety in a disaster or crisis and the duration of the response phase rely on the preparedness level. For example, response activities include conducting a search and rescue mission, addressing the people of Longley and Ruby Lake during the flood, and implementing a disaster response plan. Consequently, taking action to protect Ruby Lake and Longley people from flood disasters.
Disaster Rehabilitation and Recovery
Disaster rehabilitation and recovery are to rebuild after a disaster to return operations to normal. For instance, the recovery phase is restoring the Ruby Lake and Longley community after the disaster’s impact. Furthermore, during the disaster rehabilitation and recovery phase, social workers ensure that Ruby Lake and Longley people have achieved at least some environmental, physical, social and economic stability. According to Paton (2019b), during the rehabilitation and recovery phase, restoration efforts alongside regular activities and operations. Examples of activities during the recovery phase are minimizing vulnerability to future disasters and reducing or preventing stress-related illness and excessive financial burdens. Additionally, rebuilding damaged structures is based on advanced knowledge obtained from the preceding disaster.
Social Work Skills for Managing Crises and Natural Disasters
Empathy Skill
Empathic skill assists social workers in understanding how Longley and Ruby Lake people feel so that they can respond appropriately to the flood disaster. For instance, empathetic social work practitioners are more effective and can balance their duties better. According to Moudatsou et al. (2020), empathy is the act of understanding, experiencing, perceiving, and responding to disaster victims’ emotional states and ideas. Therefore, social workers develop empathy by building time for reflection. Empathy also helps social workers to mentally place themselves in their client’s positions. Thus, the character trait offers compassion that social workers require to serve clients appropriately. Consequently, empathy enables social workers to establish social awareness and build connections with clients.
Communication skill
Effective communication skills enable social workers to discover what service users or other professionals are feeling or thinking. Furthermore, effective communication skills allow social workers to build trust, listen to clients, handle conflict, and find appropriate information concerning the flood disaster from Ruby Lake and Longley. According to Kaprowska (2020), social workers must communicate with clients to find information and decide based on the available information. Therefore, effective communication helps build rapport with clients during a flood disaster—consequently, communication assists in understanding small-scale human interaction and community interaction.
Cultural Competence Skill
Cultural competence skill fosters the acknowledgement and acceptance of differences in behaviour, appearance and culture. For example, cultural competence skill enables social workers to exercise social work in a manner that affirms, recognizes and values the worth of families, individuals, and communities and protects and preserves the dignity of each. According to Germain and Knight (2021), social workers who show cultural competence strives to comprehend the cultures of the people they serve and to support them with cultural respect and sensitivity. Therefore, cultural competence enables social workers to help Ruby Lake and Longley people overcome possible cultural barriers and link them with critical resources. Social workers enhance cultural competence through cultural humility, self-awareness, and the commitment to embracing and understanding culture as an effective central practice.
Advocacy Skill
Advocacy skill is crucial in social work because it assists clients in being independent and offers a voice for the underserved. For instance, advocacy skill enables social workers to foster inclusion, equality, and social justice, all social work practice goals. Furthermore, social workers advocate for Longley and Ruby Lake people to enhance their access to basic resources such as food, housing and healthcare. According to Mapp et al. (2019), social workers act as clients’ advocates by fostering legislation that positively impacts the community. Therefore, advocacy skill is a vital social work skill because it enables people to be heard, supports human rights protection, influences policies and laws, people better understand each other, problem solving and participate, and educates the greater community.
Strategic Plan for Addressing Identified Needs As a Disaster Manager Working for a Disaster Relief Organization
Micro Level Needs
The micro level addresses the needs of society’s most vulnerable groups, such the children, the elderly, and individuals with mental illness. For instance, the strategic plan for addressing the identified needs of a disaster manager working for a disaster relief organization is assisting Ruby Lake and Longley people to find housing, healthcare and social services. Additionally, providing community and individual counselling to the victims of the flood disaster is a strategic plan for addressing micro-level needs. According to Wijk et al. (2019), along with offering individual counselling, micro-social workers connect their clients with vital resources such as healthcare, housing, and mental health services that enhance their lives. Therefore, micro-level social work involves sensitive interaction with flood disaster victims.
Mezzo Level Needs
Mezzo social work involves implementing and developing social service initiatives at the community level. For example, the strategic plan for addressing the identified needs of a disaster manager working for a disaster relief organization is coordinating care for clients and diagnosing mental health problems due to the flood disaster in Longley and Ruby Lake. Additionally, advocating for and serving clients within Longley and Ruby Lake. According to Wu and Greig (2022), social workers provide clients with support services and offer guidance and intervention. Therefore, the mezzo-level practice enhances organizational service delivery, functioning, and community well-being for vulnerable populations within Ruby Lake and Longley communities.
Macro Level Needs
Macro social work entails changing, repairing or negating large-scale systematic issues that affect Ruby Lake and Longley people due to the flood disaster. For instance, the strategic plan for addressing the identified needs of a disaster manager working for a disaster relief organization is lobbying to change healthcare law, advocating for large-scale social policy change, and organizing a state-wide activist group. Furthermore, macro social work involves intervening in large, high-level systems. According to Kaushik and Walsh (2019), micro-social work includes social work research, community-based education initiatives, program development for the community, organizational development, policy analysis and advocacy, and non-profit administration and leadership. Therefore, social workers help with macro-level needs through political advocacy and research.
Meta Level Needs
Meta-level social work integrates the global social aspect that interacts and overarches with a mezzo, macro and micro practice. For example, the strategic plan for addressing the identified needs of a disaster manager working for a disaster relief organization is fostering individuals’ well-being and minimizing social problems by establishing the strengths clients possess and through clients’ systems in which they interact. According to Shorey et al. (2020), comprehending how micro-practice, macro-practice, and mezzo-practice interact and engage viewpoints strengthen by underscoring the potential of collaborative interconnectedness and connecting clearly to an ecosystem’s Framework.
Evaluate Ethical Dilemmas Associated With Providing Services during Crises and Disasters
Right to Self-Determination
Social workers foster and respect clients’ right to self-determination and help clients in their efforts to clarify and identify their goals during a flood disaster. For example, social workers can limit clients’ right to self-determination when clients’ potential actions pose a serious, imminent, foreseeable risk to themselves or others. According to Reamer (2018a), all clients have the right to self-determination; by that right, they freely determine their political status and pursue their social, economic and cultural development. Therefore, the right to self-determination is an ethical principle in social work that identifies the rights and clients’ needs to be free to make personal choices. Consequently, the right to self-determination led to positive results during flood disaster management in Ruby Lake and Longley.
Differences in Personal Values
Sometimes, Ruby Lake and Longley people need assistance that conflicts with the social worker’s personal moral beliefs. For example, a pregnant client may ask her anti-abortion social worker for help obtaining an abortion during the disaster. However, the social worker may feel torn between maintaining a positive relationship with the client or offering the service requested. According to Reamer (2018b), personal values affect a social worker’s professional judgment and influence a social worker’s actions, decisions and behaviour. Therefore, social workers apply personal values when making decisions during a flood disaster, and social workers need to observe those values and evaluate how they influence their judgment. Consequently, differences in personal values affect service provision during flood disaster.
Dual Relationships
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) firmly prohibits the relationship between clients and social workers outside the professional context. Though, avoiding connections sometimes becomes difficult. For instance, clients and social workers can live in the same communities, send their children to the same schools, shop at the same store, and share intimate details due to their work nature. According to Farkas and Romaniuk (2020), social work practitioners must decide on the appropriate professional and ethical way to engage with clients in a non-professional setting. Therefore, it should be avoided if a dual relationship is exploitive, whether it starts before, during, or after a professional association. Consequently, the dual relationship is avoided because social workers can misuse their power to influence and exploit clients for their gains and the client’s harm.
Confidentiality Involving Minors
Although shared information between clients and social workers is firmly confidential, some situations that need the social worker to reveal client information to a third party can arise. For example, sometimes, these circumstances involve minors who may not or may be entitled to certain confidentiality. Therefore, acting in these scenarios may evidence both painful and difficult due to the feeling of breach of trust among them. According to Hermansson et al. (2022), social workers are required to respect clients’ right to privacy; social workers avoid soliciting confidential information about clients except for compelling professional reasons. Furthermore, confidentiality in social work protects clients’ information from unauthorized use, access, disclosure, modification or loss. Consequently, ethically handling clients’ details, data and private information is crucial during disaster management.
Application of Social Work Skills and Knowledge To Disaster Relief Planning.
Direct Outreach
Social workers in the wake of flood disaster have to find methods of connecting the survivors with the assistance they require. For instance, direct outreach can be conducted on the ground, with individuals, directly with community leaders, or across digital means. Therefore, social work practitioners must work carefully to make sure that disaster victims gain access to life-saving support. According to Sliva et al. (2019), victims after a disaster may not comprehend that they are eligible for relief support; social workers assist in bridging the gap through informing victims of the services and resources they may require. Therefore, direct outreach assists disaster victims through offering assistance to vulnerable populations within the community. Consequently, direct outreach enables social workers to have a better understanding of clients so that they can conduct disaster relief planning.
Mental Health Counseling
The distress associated with surviving flood disaster can seem overwhelming for victims. For example, outside of making shelter, food and other relief services accessible to survivors, flood disaster management social workers steps in to provide required counseling services. According to Pollock et al. (2020), as trained mental health practitioners, social workers are outstandingly equipped to provide psychological, emotional and clinical support. Therefore, diverse triggers and trauma are linked with various kinds of disasters; social workers apply particular strategies to ensure survivors obtain the care they individually need. Consequently, social workers practice in behavioral health fosters well-being through by assessment, treatment, diagnosis, and prevention of mental illness.
Victim Advocacy
After the flood disaster, affected Longley and Ruby Lake places and communities get greater attention from media sources such as television and radios. However, after the dust settles and new cycles start to move, communities are still left reeling, and disconnected. Therefore, social workers assist in advocating outwardly for ongoing, continuous assistance for survivors. According to Crockett et al. (2018), both on community and individual level, social workers engage with organizations, agencies, and policy makers to advocate for greater levels of aid for disaster victims. Therefore, social workers help disaster victims by offering them information, and emotional support. Additionally, victim advocates organize support groups, or provide in-person counseling. Subsequently, victim advocates offer support and services to individuals who have been the victim of flood disaster.
Establish Support Networks
At the same time that Longley and Ruby Lake people’s lives have turned upside down after the flood disaster, the communities as a whole experiences terrific challenges. For example, when disaster victims feel disconnected to other community or community members, recuperating from a tragedy like, flood disaster can appear almost impossible. According to Alston and Bowles (2020), social workers assists reestablish communities when they connect people to the support networks they may be conversant with. Therefore, the process of recovery proves much more sustainable and effective when social workers restore community based connections. Networking establishes trust relationships, which can only be built on person to person basis. For instance, social worker understands that flood disaster victims need many different types of services, but all are inaccessible at once.
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