The Role of the Social Worker in the Face of Terrorism: Israeli Community-Based Experience

Abstract

Terrorism and its aftermath have become part of the Western way of life, and social workers have a central role to play in helping affected families and their communities. Drawing on community-based experience in Israeli communities, the authors examine the planning of multidisciplinary teams and how their planning was put into effect in their communities in several terrorist attacks. The authors use reports of social workers, community volunteers, and clients to map the phases of the activity, the roles and goals of the social workers with different focal systems during the phase stages, and the tasks that the social workers carried out.

Case Management with Hurricane Katrina Survivors: Perspectives of Case Managers and Supervisors

“…Because this difference appeared to be particularly salient for case managers and supervisors who were not themselves hurricane survivors working in non-disaster areas, this may be an issue of cultural difference between evacuees and their host communities. Addressing cultural differences has been noted in previous work about disaster case management (Itzhaky & York, 2005;Puig & Glynn, 2003;UMCOR, 2001). Henkel, Dovidio, and Gaertner (2006) argue that interventions to address the consequences of Katrina must consider the racial dynamics in New Orleans before and after the storm.…”

“…Disaster case management focuses on the development of a recovery plan addressing disaster-related unmet needs, as opposed to pre-disaster needs or social conditions (United Methodist Committee on Relief [UMCOR], 2001). Examples drawn from social service provisions after previous disasters such as the 1993 Great Flood in Illinois (Poulin & Soliman, 1999), Hurricane Mitch in Honduras (Puig & Glynn, 2003), the September 21, 1999 earthquake in Taiwan (Yueh-Ching, 2003), terrorist attacks in Israel (Itzhaky & York, 2005), and the 1997 Red River of the North Flood (Heitkamp, 1997) indicate the need for responders to be flexible, seek out survivors, coordinate services with multiple agencies, work with limited information, and intervene at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. Advocacy for survivors and collaboration with other agencies have been shown to be especially important aspects of disaster response.…”

Coping with Disaster: Lessons Learned From Executive Directors of Nonprofit Organizations (NPOs) in New Orleans Following Hurricane Katrina

“…Character issues noted by at least half of the respondents included (in descending order of frequency) adaptation, vision, resilience, responsiveness, and flexibility. The crucial character issues in a changing service delivery environment, particularly flexibility, were noted in several prior studies (Heitkamp, 1997;Itzhaky & York, 2005;Poulin & Soliman, 1999;Yueh-Ching, 2003). Strength of character and values among smaller nonprofit organizations, consistent with those identified by respondents in this study, would be expected to lead to the greater flexibility noted as a crucial attribute in a changing service delivery environment in the literature.…”

“…Several studies (Heitkamp, 1997;Itzhaky & York, 2005;Poulin & Soliman, 1999;Yueh-Ching, 2003) describe flexibility in a changing service delivery environment as crucial to coordinating a good response. The importance of collaboration and the skills necessary to accomplish this under stressful circumstances are important for those involved in disaster recovery efforts (Bell, 2008).…”

Reconstructing the Loss: Hantzacha Commemoration Following the Death of a Spouse in a Terror Attack

“…In Israeli society, various aspects of death and bereavement are prominent in light of the ongoing violent confrontations between Palestinians and Israelis (e.g., Itzhaky & York, 2005). Coping with sudden, untimely, violent death has been characterized as traumatic loss.…”