When an event ends up creating a risky situation, either for the community or for a large number of people, the actions of some specialized professionals are necessary; in this way, social work in disasters or emergencies aims at the comprehensive resolution of crises, emergencies and disasters. situations of social intervention.
This intervention must be prepared in advance, so there are already a number of protocols before the emergency occurs, and must be installed after the event (Official College of Social Work of Castilla-La Mancha).
- Thus.
- Before we start talking about the role of social workers in emergency situations.
- It is necessary to explain the meaning of certain terms that we will use.
- According to Villalibre (2013):.
Aptekar (1994), based on quantitative data, also differentiates these three terms cited by Villalibre (2013):
Fouce, Hernandez-Coronado, Nevado, Martinez, Losada and Lillo (1998) explain the common part among all the terms:
“The world breaks us all, and then some become stronger in broken places. “Ernest Hemingway.
Firstly, we must take into account that social work intervention must be present from the outset.
This means that we must participate from the moment of prevention and development of the protocol to the moment when the action of different professionals is necessary.
We must not forget that working together and as a team will always bring greater benefit to the community.
The consequences of such situations are quite unpredictable and can also be devastating, multidisciplinary intervention is necessary. That’s because the problem decreases when we attack it from different fronts.
If we want to focus on the professional point of view we are talking about today, we can say that there are two fronts to observe in social work.
On the one hand, and in the first moments, we have a role of accompaniment and support; on the other hand, we need to minimize action so that it is the community that assumes the leadership role and actively participates in its strengthening and construction (Peaate, 2009).
For this reason, some of the functions of social workers would be (Blacksmith, 2012):
According to Herrero (2012), some of the goals that social workers must have in disasters, emergencies and disasters are:
Of course, the role of social workers, although often overlooked, is especially necessary when it comes to improving the situation for people who have been affected by disasters or emergencies.
In this way, the synchronized work of the different computers becomes fundamental in this type of situation.