Chinese Social Work Actions and Impact in Disaster Management

Xiulan Zhang, PhD Professor and Dean

SSDPP, BNU

The Earthquake

The Earthquake

• The May 12th Sichuan Earthquake in China:– Claimed 69,227 lives and resulted in 17,932 people missing.

More than 374,000 people were injured. – Near 90 counties, over 900 townships/towns and more than

9,000 communities suffered severe damages in terms of assets, land, jobs, livelihoods, public facilities, infrastructure, and human lives.

– Over 13 million people lost their homes. About 1.15 million farmers lost their land, and 372,000 urban residents lost their jobs.

It is the largest natural disaster in PRC’s 59 years’ of history and are calling for the largest post-disaster social protection schemes in China.

Social Work Profession in China Brief history of SW education in China

The number of universities and colleges with social work programs is 350 in 2010, including 270 undergraduate and 75 graduate social work programs and producing over 10,000 graduates each year.

Most of the programs are staffed by faculty with backgrounds in sociology, philosophy, psychology, Marxist theories or other disciplines. Many of the teachers have neither formal pre-service training nor practice experience. Qualified field instructors are rarely employed to supervise practicum.

A huge gap between education and practice Responding to Disaster is relatively a new

mission for them. Wenchuan Earthquake became the defining moment for social work profession.

Contents

• A Stage theory framework is utilized in analyzing the role and functions of social worker involvement in disasters.

• Achievements and challenges in catastrophic disasters of social workers faced when attempting to respond to institutional damages, community changes, the needs of survivors.

• Best practices and lessons learned for future intervention and research.

Stage Theory of Disaster (Gillespie, Danso,2010)

Preparedness

ResponseRecovery

Mitigation

Feng Yen——Taiwan National University, 2008

Stage TimingRescue Within a Month after Disaster Resettlement A Month ~ Half a Year Reconstruction Half a Year ~ Three Years

Wang Xiying——SSDPP at BNU,2010 Stage Timing

Rescue Within a Week after Disaster Resettlement A Week ~ Three MonthsReconstruction Three years (maybe just a beginning )

Stage Divisions of Wenchuan Earthquake

Methodology: Action Research

Ground-Zero: Information gathering Policy research Training of volunteers Donation management policy Coordination and networking Dispatch experts and resources Identification of programs and collaborators

Central OfficeLinking social sector with policy processBridging donations with needsSharing experiences in worldwideProviding technical assistanceLinking knowledge, intervention, research and policy making

Ground-Zero and Central Office

Research Methods: Surveys

• Surveys on Cadres and Local Community Leaders• Surveys and Activity Mapping of NGOs• Longitudinal Households Questionnaire Surveys:

2003household/ 2008; 2275 household/2009; 733 household/2010.

• Attitude and Employment Surveys of the Affected• Psychosocial and Health Longitudinal Surveys• Pregnant Women Longitudinal Surveys• Policy Documentation Center

Methodology: Services/Research Model

• Establishment of a Social Work Station in the Largest Temporary Housing Community.

• Establishment of A Linked-Service Model on Demand of Pregnant Women and New Babies.

• Interviews and Focus Groups with social workers

Challenges : Social Worker Faced

• Damages on Institutions, Communities and People

• Community Damages and Changes; • Geographical distance between needs and

service

Institutional Damages after Earthquake (Survey over 2000 local cadres in Dec 2008 in Deyang City)

Pressure on the local Cadre: Role for social workers?

Community Damages and Changes

• Over 13 million people lost their homes and millions and were forced to live in temporary resettlement areas.

• The Chinese government was able to manufacture more than one million prefabricated homes and established dozen of temporary resettlement areas across the disaster areas within the first three months after the earthquake.

• In the three different stages, community change is an important setting :– First, people were temporarily relocated from damaged houses to

unaffected communities, sports centers, or makeshift tent villages; – Second, move to temporary resettlement areas, and – Third, finally move into permanent houses.

Main Issues in Rescue and Reallocation Phases

Policy Challenges: Central policy making process is based on the normal decision making

protocols. Lack of coordination between Central and Local Governments. Coordination between line ministries has no clear and efficient

mechanisms. Policies made have not well coordinated, and many of the policies issued cannot be implemented effectively.

Social participation has limited channels and is not easy to coordinate. Different demand: Long term vs Short term; Hardware vs Software

Information asymmetry is intensified and creates more challenges in decision making and implementation, as well as services provision• Impact of earthquake differs across the 417 counties. Getting the accurate

and timely information is a big challenge. • The local situation changes rapidly.• The earthquake has left a dearth of leadership knowledge due to the

damage on local administrations. Information flow channel from local to central got affected.

Main Issues in Rescue and Resettlement Phases

Government responsibility has been extended beyond its normal range. Due to the heavy social and economic damages, government has to take on almost all the responsibilities, and the boundaries between the government, societal, and individuals need to be redefined.

Disparities between the 417 quake affected counties in social-economic-environmental and geographical areas require the policies on redevelopment to be suitable to local conditions, and to be consistent to the national policies.

Higher demand on equity and equality. Local people participation in decision making, policy implementation, and evaluation needs to be considered.

The complexity requires the policy makers to be cautious, but the urgency to get people back to normal requires quick policy responses. This creates a “decision-making dilemma”.

The damage on local government has significantly reduced the local governments’ and organizations’ capacity of policy and program implementation. Many staff themselves are the survivors too, and many of them lost their families.

Changing Needs at Different Stages (household surveys in 2008, 2009, and 2010)

Government Priority: whether social worker can work on those issues ignored by government?

Social Workers in the Rescue Stage

in the Rescue Stage of Seven days, social workers were not mobilized during Wenchuan earthquakeWorkers’ immaturity and lack of confidenceThe local governments’ reluctant to accept social workersThe anxiety of the relevant government (Ministry of Civil

Affairs)And the Central Government’s policy priorities

At the same time, we can see from the tables, emotional support and counseling are not on the survivors’ priority list.

Social Work During the Temporary Resettlement Stage

Social Workers as Coordinators in Multidisciplinary Teams.

Social Workers as Coordinators for Organizations.

Social Workers promote fair relief distribution – especially

when people have different view with Cadres

Social Workers as Conflict Mediators.

Policy advocacy

Life and network are different in 2008 and 2009

Assistance——2009

People’s view is different from Cadres’ relief distribution

People’s view is different from Cadres’ relief distribution

Social Workers in the Reconstruction Stage

Set up more than 30 social work stations

Social workers as a facilitator of collective and

individual grieving and mourning

Social workers as community organizers

Link economic development with social recovery

Social Workers as Companions.

1. Lessons Learned: Organizational Resilience

2. Lessons Learned: Social Protection Policies

Living condition right after the earthquake

3. Lessons Learned: A Twining Arrangement for Resources Channeling into the Affected Areas

An intergovernmental arrangement of geared support Mechanism: A particular province/city takes responsibility for

a particular affected county, providing support for the resettlement, reconstruction and redevelopment.

An innovation for financing the Wenchuan Mega Earthquake recovery and redevelopment– Some considered this arrangement could be an opportunity for their catch-

up development strategy– All counties and provinces have established special offices to coordinate

the effort.– Efforts include sending teachers, doctors, social workers, cash,

infrastructure building, etc.• Effective, but might have crowded out social and

business sector involvement.

4. Lessons Learned: The Embedded Social Work Model

The social work stations are embedded in the exisitng systems with both local staff and the professionals: A school based model A community based model

Social work interventions are grounded in the communities and institutions and focus on strength-based capacity-building.

Collaborative modelUniversity, NGO, government are all play important role of

promoting the development of social work in the earthquake area

Social workers find their long-term commitment in the earthquake area and search for the way of localization

5. Lessons Learned: Evidence/Action Based Reseach

• Policy Advocacy– People in special needs (children, disabled, elderly– People at risks (kidnapping, small babies, etc)– Short term social protection benefits with long-term social

development policies.• Linking Research with Services

– Research is grounded on the rapid changing needs?– Identification of short term, mid-term and long-term needs– Guidelines versus on-site management

Rsearch Questions to be Further Studied

How does the roles of SW in different stages interact with the regime of risk/disaster management in China?

By type of disasters? By establishing social work practices in schools, hospitals and communities?

How to establish an integrative model of Disaster Social Work and Risk Management?

Different roles in different phases? How social workers fulfill peoples’ different needs in

different stages? Identification of different needs at different stages

How social work practice can link to policy advocacy? What have been done right from the short term, mid-term and long term

perspective What we haven’t done

•Thank You for your Attention!