Remembering, Apologies, and Truth: Challenges for Social Work Today

Institutional betrayal.

“…The institutional factors surrounding trauma are not likely to always be as clear and compounded as in Lizzy’s experience. Yet emerging research indicates that institutions (e.g., workplaces, schools, religious organizations) have the potential to either worsen posttraumatic outcomes or become sources of justice, support, and healing (e.g., Campbell, 2006; Healy, 2012). Institutional effects arise in a staggering array of events from unfair or exploitative workplace policies, to legalized withholding of rights from classes of people (such as the right to marriage or health care), to the systemic destruction of a culture or people through genocide.…”

Becoming a Trustworthy Profession: Doing Better Than Doing Good

“…Evidence submitted to previous Inquiries has suggested that human service professions, such as medicine, nursing, and social work, may have played a role in human rights violations such as the forced removal of children and the forced adoptions. However, the case against our social workers as direct perpetrators of these violations remains unclear, in part due to the fact that social work is a relatively late developing profession in Australia and still lacks title protection (Healy, 2012). The evidence is also contested because the professional Association is on record as having long opposed some of the practices, such as forced adoption, which were the subject of these Inquiries.…”

The Social Policy Context of the Norma Parker Addresses

“…This Address highlighted the obligation of social workers to draw a connection between historical oppression and contemporary Indigenous disadvantage, and support Indigenous Australians in their political struggle (Gaha, 1999). However, a later Address cautioned that while the Bringing Them Home report (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997) referred to some social workers participating in the policing of Indigenous families, there was no detailed historical evidence available on the extent of social work's contribution to the removal of Indigenous children (Healy, 2012).…”

“…A further Address emphasised that historical injustices such as the removal of Indigenous children and the forced adoption of the children of single mothers were the result of structural and institutional inequities that may still exist in health and welfare systems today (Healy, 2012).…”

“…Other social policy themes, covered in passing, included endorsement of the Whitlam Government's Medibank (subsequently Medicare) health insurance scheme (Benjamin, 1975), concerns about the stereotyping of the unemployed as "dole bludgers" (Vaughan, 1977;1979); opposition to a Goods and Services or Consumption Tax that would disadvantage low income earners (Tesoriero,1985); support for gay rights (Truswell, 1987); the specific nature of rural disadvantage (Truswell, 1987); the plight of homeless young people (Truswell, 1989); environmental damage and the need to integrate social justice and environmental activism (Truswell, 1989); the contentious role played by social workers in the forced relinquishment of children by single mothers (Dodds, 1997;Healy, 2012); the major cuts to income security introduced by the Coalition Government under the euphemistic title of "welfare reform" (Gaha, 2001); and the experiences of the "Forgotten Australians" who had been abused or neglected in state care (Healy, 2012).…”