stigma – 2019 Social work blog 413 /713

Let’s restore our identity as future social workers

By Maryann

In this blogpost, I would like to address and challenge some of the issues that social workers are facing daily in their practices. The role allotted to social workers seems to be revolving around individual issues and neglecting wider issues that influence individual issues. Why could this be happening? We know that social workers are the voices of structural changes within our society, but is this being promoted?

Why do social worker’s accept current identity and discourses? For example, the public has assumed and expected social work to be build bridges between services, providing resources such as clothing, food, temporary accommodation. I want to speak out that social workers carry out a lot more than this, and it needs to be acknowledged and recognised. We need to restore the way we think and feel about our identity as future social workers.

What exactly does the public know and understand about social workers? Usually people just know that social workers “help” or “facilitate (Staniforth, Fouche & Beddoe, 2014). Public views and opinion about social work has not been positive throughout the past (Staniforth, Deane & Beddoe, 2016). Social workers are ‘baby snatchers’, ‘social workers discriminate’, social workers are ‘damaging and pessimistic’. Yes, I must admit there may have been times when social workers may have made bad calls regarding safety of children (Russell, 2017). However, we can not ignore this identity or act as if we accept it. Let’s uphold our mana and pride as social workers of Aotearoa New Zealand and reduce this stigma.

When talking to current social workers that are new to the field, they started with a goal to make big changes towards our society, but has this happened yet? The response I usually receive is more negative than positive – the majority of social workers have stated they are restricted from resources to enable any changes towards structural issues. Therefore, they feel they are not accomplishing the reason why they became social workers. Obtaining these comments from current social workers inspires me to dive into how we can reduce stigma and being influenced from negativity amongst public about government agencies. Social workers are discouraged by the current stigma and this creates a barrier for advocating for change. We need to build stronger foundations towards our future identity as social workers. There is a gap in good advocacy amongst our current social workers, hence why it is important we focus on transforming the way the public perceives social work identity.

My feelings towards this issue are very strong, and I am passionate about changing this awareness. I am going to leave my thoughts with you. The majority of the public may have negative or unknown feelings and thoughts around social workers in New Zealand. Are these opinions stopping people from becoming future social workers? I surely hope not as I see social workers becoming strong and wiser in the future if we act now to advocate for positive structural changes. How do you think we could overcome this issue? Why are social workers being criticised in their practices?

Being a fourth-year student and getting near to graduation in my social work degree, I feel a sense of eagerness, enthusiasm but I am also nervous and anxious. I have confidence there is a way to restore social work identity. If we are effective and realistic in our practice and approaches it will motivate public to understand and not be influenced and concentrate on negativity. People do not decide to become social workers overnight – it is decided from past experiences negative or positive, or wanting to make big changes. I am proud to be able to become a professional social worker. I have reassured myself that I will keep the fire burning in wanting to be a constructive social worker. Also, it is important for myself to remind myself as to why I want to become a social worker and what kind of social worker.

References

Staniforth, B., Deane, K. L., & Beddoe, L. (2016). Comparing public perceptions of social work and social workers’ expectations of the public view. Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work, 28(1),13-24 https://anzswjournal.nz/anzsw/article/download/112/220

Emma Russell (2017). Newborn baby taken because social worker thought she smelled cannabis. Retrieved from: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11938443

Staniforth, B., Fouche, C., & Beddoe, L. (2014). Public perception of social work and social workers in Aotearoa New Zealand. Aotearoa New Zealand Social work, 26(2/3), 48. Https://anzswjournal.nz/anzsw/article/viewFile/42/146

Discourse, stereotypes and social work

By Kex

If you drive a motor vehicle in New Zealand, it is undeniable that people perceive the Chinese population as “bad drivers”, and make assumptions based on ethnicity. However, “according to the data, of the 378 road deaths in 2017, 34 people died in 25 crashes that involved a foreign driver. The foreign driver was at fault in 18 of those.” (NZ Herald, 2019 ). This statistic shows that foreign drivers only contribute to less than five per cent of the road toll deaths in New Zealand, while New Zealand citizens were at fault for over 95 per cent road accidents.

Let us have a look at other ethnicities and the stereotypes surrounding them. As for the indigenous people of New Zealand, Māori, common stereotypes suggest the public tends to think that the Māori population usually involves gang association, violence, and criminal activity. Contrasting perceptions for Pasifika people, people tend to have a stereotype of, labelling Pasifika people as lazy, poor and rely on welfare support. As for Muslim people, the public stereotypes those as having refugee status, and terrorist association (Kino, 2019 ). As a Chinese female myself, who has a Māori partner, the first question that some of my friends have asked me has been “Did he ever hit you?”. I do not blame my friends because they care about me and are concerned about my wellbeing. However, this makes me sad and I realise the level of stereotyping in New Zealand, and the assumptions people hold true based on ethnicity, religion, and culture.

Reflecting on social work practice, there are also many stereotypical discourses surrounding social workers, particularly for social workers in the child protection field. According to Mason (2018): “Too much coverage in the press fuels the myth we are a sinister arm of the state, focused on the systematic removal of children.” . This stereotype of child protection social workers can have a very negative effect. Due to the stereotype, clients tend not to trust or cooperate with social workers, which have led some social workers to respond in an assertive manner with the use of statutory power (Quick & Scott, 2018). Thus, a vicious cycle has formed in the child protection field.

However, where do all these stereotypes come from? From my perspective, mass media has contributed to a wide range of stereotypes in New Zealand. When searching for road toll deaths in New Zealand on Google, many media outlets reported with a pronounced title of “Chinese driver”, while almost none of the news items indicated a New Zealand driver was at fault when a car accident happened. In this case, the public tends to believe that New Zealanders usually are the victims of car accidents, and Chinese drivers “rip and destroy families”. Similarly, the media tend to implicate “Māori” when a violent or criminal action takes place, while Pākehā New Zealand ethnicity is seldom identified in the media.

Looking back at the horrific and heart-breaking terrorist attack which happened in Christchurch this year, it is the first time that mainstream media focused on Muslim families and reported about their struggles (Kino, 2019 ). Flowers were piled in front of mosques and many anti-racism posters were put on the streets. I feel like this is the first time since I moved to New Zealand that the voice of Muslim people was acknowledged. Before this tragic incident happened, the voices of Muslim people were disregarded and the media spoke heavily of terrorism when they mentioned Muslim people. (Kino, 2019)

Stereotyping is a serious issue that we need to be aware of, and we as social workers need to be dedicated to eliminating stereotyping altogether. Stereotyping is so close and connected to social work practice that sometimes you might not even realise it when you are doing it. As a social work student, I remember the first day I started my degree at the University of Auckland, a Māori lecturer asked the class a question: “What do you think are stereotypes about Māori?”. The consensus was that Māori stereotypes were “violent”, “homeless”, “lazy”, “criminals” and “alcoholics”. Many answers were negative toward the Māori population, with only a few positive comments provided. The Māori lecturer then said: “As social workers, we are here to reduce those stereotypes, and hopefully one day, when I ask the same question again, there will be more positive comments about us. When that day comes, we as social workers can finally say that we have done our jobs.”.

Reference

Kino, S. (2019, March 23). I’m struggling to be a journalist in New Zealand right now [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/23-03-2019/im-struggling-to-be-a-journalist-in-new-zealand-right-now/

Mason, S. (2018, May 16). A warped view of social work in the media is unfair – and dangerous. [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/social-life-blog/2018/may/16/media-social-work-press-state-children

NZ Herald. (2019, January 23). Data shows you can’t blame foreign drivers for high road crash rate. Retrieved from https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12194979

Quick, D., & Scott, A. L. (2018). Affect and emotion in a parent’s engagement with statutory child-protection services: Navigating stigma and ‘identity assault’. The British Journal of Social Work, 49(2), 485-502.

Mental health issues: The ultimate victim blaming

By Larissa Bottomley

Mental health issues seem to be everywhere these days. If I had a dollar for every time someone said they have anxiety or depression, I’d be able to buy all the medication to cure said mental health issues. Unfortunately, I’ve heard of many victims of abuse diagnosed with mental health issues too. Schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, anxiety, the list goes on. But is diagnosing victims of abuse helping them, or harming them?

Hopefully after reading this, you might agree that actually, it’s just another form of victim-blaming.

Firstly, let’s talk about victim blaming.

This is when blame and responsibility of the abusive incident is placed on the person who was abused, and not the person who did the abusing. Most of the time, we think of victims blaming as things like “she shouldn’t have been out that late at night” or “she was wearing a very short skirt when she was assaulted”. If you need any other examples of victim blaming, you can find them here by Suzzanah Wiess, 2016.

Now let’s talk about mental health and psychiatric disorders.

The DSM (Diagnostic statistical manual for mental health disorders) is full of disorders that many victims of abuse are diagnosed with. Jessica Eaton, a forensic psychologist who specializes in gender-based violence, talks in her webinar about how every diagnosis in the DSM is strongly correlated with trauma. Therefore, one could argue that mental health disorders may be caused or exacerbated by traumatic events. Yet, instead of saying “actually, the way you are behaving is completely normal given what’s happened to you”, we tend to diagnose the victim and place the problem on her. She is no longer behaving in this way because of the trauma inflicted up on her, but because of her own internal issues that need to be treated and medicated.

So we’ve talked about how diagnosing places the problem on the victim, which internalizes and stigmatizes the trauma instead of normalizing it. If you’re still on the edge about calling pathologizing a form of victim blaming, then we should talk about abusers using the diagnosis against their victims. Will Bratt, a trauma therapist, discusses in his blog how abusers will often blame their behaviour on the victim’s mental health issues. Statements like “her anxiety made me angry and want to punch something” or “she knows her paranoid schizophrenia pushes all my buttons” is all too common, and is a means for the abusers to justify their heinous acts toward the victim. Imagine going through a traumatizing event, then being told your reaction to it means you have a problem and this needs to be medicated, then to top it off, your partner uses it against you as a reason to get angry and further revictimize you.

I want to lastly talk about how the court process is the last step in the pathologization of victim blaming. I’m sure we’ve all heard the stereotypes around mental health issues. For example, if I were to say “schizophrenia”, what would you think? Hearing and seeing things that aren’t there? Paranoia? Their reality is different to ours? Or what about personality disorders. Overly emotional? Manipulative? Impulsive and reckless? I’m sure we have stereotypes for many mental health disorders. And unfortunately, the courts aren’t much different. In a blog I read about this, ‘The system is broken’ it was highlighted that police see victims when they are hysterical and acting emotively, while the offender is often very calm and confident, leading ill-informed police to side with the abuser, and believe the victim’s mental health diagnosis is the cause of the incident, when in fact this is a natural response to a highly stressful and traumatic event. This gets worse as victims attempt to testify in court against the abuser, as people with mental health issues are often seen as not credible or reliable in court. This makes court processes often favour the abuser, and most victims with mental health diagnoses lose their court battle due to the pathology being used against them.

Mental health disorders do more harm than good for victims of abuse. We need to stop pathologizing victims and start calling their behaviours and reactions for what they are; responses to a trauma that was forced upon them.

The social injustice of drug prohibition

By LSW

In 2020 Aotearoa will vote in a referendum on legalising the recreational use of cannabis for adults. While the pro-legalisation campaign #makeitlegal promotes the economic and social benefits of legalisation, prohibitionist campaign Say Nope To Dope offers stark warnings of potential health risks and possible social costs.

The cannabis referendum is a start, but we must also have a public conversation about the criminalisation of other drugs. Drug prohibition is an issue of social justice, and therefore an issue for social work. Prohibition has a history rooted in racism, as a tool used to criminalise and incarcerate marginalised populations. In the United States, cannabis, opium, and cocaine were criminalised to target the respectively Latino, Chinese, and black populations that favoured their use (Drug Policy Alliance, 2019). In the 1970s, US President Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs, acknowledged by senior administration members as a tactic to criminalise and marginalise his opponents via an engineered association with illicit substances (Drug Policy Alliance, 2019). In Aotearoa, Māori are disproportionately arrested, charged, and convicted for cannabis-related offences (NZ Drug Foundation, 2016). The current system where drugs are prohibited but offenders charged at the discretion of officers of the institutionally racist police contributes to this disproportionality, with Pākehā drug users significantly more likely to receive pre-charge warnings than their Māori counterparts (NZ Drug Foundation, 2015).

On top of its dubious history, drug prohibition has failed. Prohibition has not eliminated the use of illicit substances, instead succeeding only in creating significant stigma toward drug users and pushing the problem of drug addiction underground. Harmful language towards and a negative media portrayal of drug users have othered the group, with addicts noting strong feelings of social exclusion and discrimination (GCODP, 2017). The fact is, drug use is not uncommon. 44% of New Zealanders will try an illegal substance at some point. Those that do not will know someone who has, often without realising. The vast majority of this substance use is non-harmful and most people will go on to lead entirely normal lives. Harm that does arise will usually be a direct result of prohibition: through a criminal conviction, causing untold personal hardship to those unfortunate enough to be charged by the police, or through untreated addiction, compounded by social stigma preventing the seeking of help.

Drug prohibition is ineffective, unjust, racist, and harmful, and I challenge it in accordance with the IFSW global social work statement of ethical principles . Social workers must add their professional opinion to the public discourse around drug-law reform.

Is this the right way to treat drug-related harm?

Photo by Tom Blackout on Unsplash.com

I personally advocate for a shift to a different model based on harm-reduction. An effective and proven way to reduce the harms of drug use is via a health-based approach facilitated by decriminalisation. Removing criminal penalties in conjunction with expanding education and addiction treatment services corresponds with a lessening of stigma around drug use and empowers those with addictions to seek help. Health-focused approaches have proven successful in countries such as Switzerland and Portugal , which have both seen significant reductions in hard drug use and related harm, particularly deaths from overdose, since adopting such models.

In those countries and others, Supervised Consumption Services (SCS) function as a safe place for users to consume substances. SCS additionally facilitate contact between users, who may otherwise be socially isolated, and professionals employed in the facilities such as social workers. Support for problems with substance use and addiction, or (emphasis on) possible correlating issues such as social deprivation and mental illness respectively, can thus be offered to users in a non-coercive, non-judgemental manner.

Photo by Joshua Ness on Unsplash.com

Minister of Police Stuart Nash has acknowledged “we cannot arrest our way out of our drug abuse problems”. Decriminalisation is a more effective, efficient, and empathetic alternative to prohibition for addressing drug-related harm, and deserves the support of not only social workers but all who are tired of the harm brought about by the failed war on drugs. Further potential harm-reduction via ‘cautious, incremental and evidence-based’ legalisation and regulation as supported by the Global Commission on Drug Policy (2018, p. 7) must also be explored; a topic for another post.

References

Drug Policy Alliance. (2019). A brief history of the drug war. Retrieved from http://www.drugpolicy.org/issues/brief-history-drug-war

Global Commission on Drug Policy. (2017). The world drug perception problem. Retrieved from http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/GCDP-Report-2017_Perceptions-ENGLISH.pdf

Global Commission on Drug Policy. (2018). Regulation: The responsible control of drugs. Retrieved from http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ENG-2018_Regulation_Report_WEB-FINAL.pdf

New Zealand Drug Foundation. (2016). There’s something wrong with the sentences. Matters of Substance. 27(4). Retrieved from https://www.drugfoundation.org.nz/matters-of-substance/november-2016/sentencing-wrongs/

New Zealand Drug Foundation. (2015). How well are pre-charge warnings working? Matters of Substance. 25(4). Retrieved from https://www.drugfoundation.org.nz/matters-of-substance/november-2014/pre-charge-warnings-working/

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