Social theory and various social work practice frameworks are in part a consequence of developments in the disciplines which have traditionally informed social work practice; philosophy, psychology, sociology and social work theorising. It is also a response from practitioners to the ways in which social work has been practised in the past.

This essay needs to use one of the following case-studies to link social work and sociological theoretical perspectives to specific social work practice frameworks. Describe relevant theoretical frameworks that help explain the case-study and then outline a comprehensive analysis of how social work practice can transform dispossession and discrimination into social, economic and political empowerment.

This is an academic essay worth 55% of the final grade and needs to follow the academic conventions of structure, style and referencing with attention paid to avoid plagiarism. The essay will be marked on the basis of:
• Structure & spelling & grammar
• Content & research & use of recent material
• Referencing and reference list (APA version 6)
• Coherence and logic (clear links between theory development and social work practice)

Gray, M., Coates, J. & Yellow Bird, M. (2008) Indigenous Social Work around the World: Towards Culturally Relevant Education and Practice, Ashgate, UK.
Cox, D. & Pawar, M. (2013) International Social Work: Issue, Strategies and Programs, 2nd Edition, SAGE, London, UK.

Case-study 1: Refugees and people mobility

Indian asylum seeker Mr K was prepared to sail 500k in a dinghy across the treacherous Coral Sea to reach Australia – and what he hoped would be freedom. With five other men, he crammed into the tiny boat, equipped with only a 40hp engine and set out from Papua New Guinea to Queensland. Without food, they battled monster waves, sharks and crocodiles during the seven-day journey. “The waves were huge some days,” Mr K, a non-swimmer, said. “At times we were vomiting, crying and just praying that we would not die.” Eventually they landed on Saibi Island in the Torres Strait.

Mr K was later interviewed by Immigration officials in Queensland. More than three years later, Mr K finds himself in limbo in Perth Airport Detention Centre. He has failed to be granted an asylum application by the Department of Immigration, the Refugee Review Tribunal and the Minister for Immigration. He is now appealing again, to the Minister. The Australian Government wants to send Mr K home. Mr K, who uses only his adopted name of Mr K for fear of reprisals by Indian authorities, has been in the detention centre for nearly two and a half years. He is the longest serving detainee there.

He says a return to India will mean certain death and the Kashmir Council of Australia agrees. General secretary Mumtaz Milan said Mr K would “be safer in Australian jails than in the so-called safe havens of India.” Since 1989, 70,000 people have been killed, 12,000 women have been raped and about 200,000 are held illegally and tortured at various camps in Kashmir by Indian authorities. The first time Mr K thought he was going to be sent back to India, he escaped from the Port Hedland Detention Centre. He was caught seven days later, served three months in Casuarina Prison and was then transferred to the Perth Detention Centre. Last year Mr K was diagnosed as suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

His tragic story begins in Kashmir in 1994. A 20-year-old final-year engineering student in Srinagar, northern India, he heard that his father had been killed by Indian security forces. When he returned home to Pulwama, in Kashmir, he visited the morgue and realized his father had been tortured to death. His father’s crime was that he had allowed the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), a group wanting independence from India, to use his printing press. “My mother became extremely distressed, collapsed into a coma,” Mr K said. “She never came to and died three months later.” His life was now at risk because of his relationship with his father. The anger over his father’s death had driven him to join the JKLF, an organization he says protested peacefully against the Indian Government.

In March 1996, Mr K and three other men were arrested by Indian security forces after a search of their home revealed some anti-government Mujaheddin literature. They were taken to the Raj Bag interrogation centre. Mr K and his colleagues were separated and tortured. He never saw two of them again. He was stripped and forced to endure the freezing Kashmir nights in a desolate cell. Water was regularly thrown on him. Lights were shone in his face and he was woken up at odd hours.

“They got a wooden roller and put it on top of me while somebody stood on it and rolled it up and down my body,” he said. “The pain was enormous. They kept asking questions about the Mujaheddin, but I didn’t know anything about them. Sometimes they would rip out my fingernails and then they pour chilli into it. That was very painful and horrible.”

After ten days, he and a friend were told they were being moved. Mr K knew that would probably mean execution. The convoy of prison trucks was ambushed by a Pakistani guerrilla group, whose leader was also one of the prisoners. They freed Mr K, who lived a fugitive existence in Kashmir and the Punjab for nearly a year. In 1997 he flew to Singapore via Thailand using a bogus passport.

There, in desperation, he stowed away on a container ship. He had no idea where it was going. Three days later he was found by an Indian crewman whose sympathy for Mr K’s plight, spared him from being thrown overboard. The ship docked in Port Moresby, where Mr K unsuccessfully sought political asylum. After 14 months of frustration, he embarked on the boat trip to Australia – the Promised Land.

You have been the social worker allocated to work with Mr K, what can you do to support and advocate for him?