How could a “capability approach” influence social work practice? - Tania Burchardt

Capabilities: people’s needs are best understood in terms of what people can be and do Capabilities: what you are enabled to be and do, given: – your own characteristics – the people around you – the resources and services you can draw on – the rights you can access – the institutions, structures and legal framework of society NOT an inherent attribute of an individual but the product of the relat. [...] Agency: people are ‘doers’ and ‘judges’ We are all ‘receivers’ – we are interdependent on each other - but we are not passive recipients We are ‘doers’ – able to make plans, able to contribute to society • this role needs to be recognised and facilitated We are ‘judges’ – with our own values, able to reflect and appraise our own lives, and contribute to collective judgements implies empowerment,. [...] to be confronted with the lived experience of vulnerable groups who will have the chance to reflect on their experience and co‐construct the conceptual framework” • Implemented in 13 countries in 2015-18 Participatory Action Human Rights and Capability Approach (PAHRCA) methodology: merging knowledge Academic Experiential knowledge knowledge of vulnerable people Professional knowledge of civil soc. [...] They’d start by saying I’m from such a place, I’m from here and by the time they got to the end I hadn’t got a clue who the second person was, and they wouldn’t be talking to me, they’d talk about me” • Frontline workers demoralised and constrained “We’re not really addressing root causes, we’re fire fighting (…) it does feel like us and them, so people don’t open up. [...] They’re fearful of what action will be taken.” -- Prospective Life Team members ‘Life’ programme: stage 0: invitation • Families invited, not mandated, to participate • Family members (with Participle) interviewed workers who volunteered to be part of the programme and built a team • Families asked what they wanted to change about their lives • Joint activities (eg repair jobs) for the team and th.