UC academic looks at role of post-earthquake social services

A just released book by University of Canterburys Associate Professor Kate van Heugten examines the experiences of workers and managers from a broad array of human service organisations in post-earthquake Christchurch.

Van Heugtens book Human Service Organisations in the Disaster Context (Palgrave Macmillan) explores the efforts of welfare, health, education, justice, psychological and community development organisations in supporting communities that have experienced large scale disasters. The work draws on confidential interviews with sources working to support communities in post-earthquake Christchurch, and integrates this with international literature to analyse the challenges and opportunities that arise for such organisations after large-scale disasters.

The book developed out of a previous work, looking at stress, fatigue and burnout in the workplace, on which she was working when the Canterbury earthquakes began.

Essentially, the idea for new book arose from a chapter in the first one," van Heugten says.

Talking to those working during the response really puts a human face on recovery efforts and draws the issues and opportunities into stark relief in an engaging way. These are people who are doing the absolute best they can for individuals, families and communities, often at times of considerable stress in their own personal situations.

It is very clear that these people play a very valuable supportive role. Often, they are more effective because of their own personal motivations to help, which keep them going-but it is also very clear that they need to be very well supported to remain effective over any period of time.

The human service organisations in which these people are employed advocate for communities, champion social justice, and help ensure that vulnerable people are not left isolated. They are a key driver of recovery, individually, as communities and as a region."

Van Heugten says her book is an academic text and uses the experiences of Christchurch workers as a case study to make the literature and theory on disaster responses accessible to readers. She does not intend the book to be a criticism of local earthquake recovery efforts-though some might see it that way.

Her participants commentaries reach beyond descriptive accounts of their own work, to more analytic commentaries about the need for collaborative rather than top-down approaches to emergency interventions and about the impacts of poverty and discrimination on long-term community recovery. While some recovery and community wellbeing needs were well catered for and funded, others were reported to be overlooked or sidelined.

There will always be a range of views about what works and what doesnt after a disaster. This book relies on qualitative research and international literature to develop theory. Qualitative research makes clear comparisons difficult, but it does offer observations about things that are internationally identified as being absolutely necessary--such as attention to the views of local communities and to the provision of affordable social housing."

Link:
UC academic looks at role of post-earthquake social services