Positioning Social Work Roles in Disaster and Climate Resilience Endeavours in South Africa

Abstract The climate change menace and its contribution to natural hazards that lead to disasters is now a reality among social work clients in South Africa. In the wake of climate-related disasters, the resilience concept is lauded as an important measure for ‘at-risk’ communities to minimise exposure to natural hazards and develop capacities to manage the impacts of climate change and its associated disasters. The resilience concept is central to the social work profession and pivotal in social work interventions in trauma counselling, mental health, child protection, deprivation, and psychiatric settings and any other form of adversity confronting individuals and communities. However, social workers are yet to mainstream their resilience orientation in the climate change and disaster landscape. The main thrust of this article is to signpost the relevance of the social work profession in disaster and climate resilience building in South Africa. The article relied on review of secondary data to ascertain the position of social workers in disaster and climate resilience building. The data sources were retrieved from Google Scholar, PubMed, and Web of Science. The discourse content analysis informed how the data were analysed. The findings of the review highlighted that practising social workers have not fully integrated disaster and climate resilience into their daily practices despite their orientation on resilience in clinical and therapeutic settings. This article infers that the social work profession, through its various roles, must gain traction in disaster and climate resilience-building endeavours to enable social work clients to withstand, recover, and bounce forward in the face of climate change and disaster risks. By so doing, the social work profession finds recognition in key developmental landscapes where building resilience to disasters and climate change is deemed fundamental.