Indigenous social work: a comparative study of New Brunswick (Canada) and Alice Springs (Australia)

Indigenous social work is an emerging field within the discipline of social work. However, the social work profession has a history of struggling to deal with cultural diversity. The practice of social workers with Indigenous clients and communities has often been overlooked, and cross-national comparative studies of social work practice are rare. This study adopts a qualitative design to explore issues relating to the crossover between mainstream and Indigenous social work, in which mainstream social work is dominant. It examines the practice of Indigenous and non-Indigenous social work practitioners working with Indigenous communities in Canada (New Brunswick) and Australia (Alice Springs). This research study explores how mainstream Western social work practices and traditional Indigenous cultures fare when juxtaposed in the 'field'. The study has two comprehensive literature reviews: A critical examination of the international literature relating to Indigenous social work and a comparative literature review of Canadian and Australian approaches to Indigenous social work practice, research, and education. The main research question relates to whether social work is compatible with Indigenous ways of being and knowing? Hermeneutic phenomenology was chosen as a framework for understanding that was most aligned with Indigenous worldviews. This methodology enabled an in-depth understanding of the lived experience (pr phenomenon) under study, namely, social work practice with Indigenous clients and communities. Van Manen's (1990) approach for researching lived experience influences the study's data collection and presentation. Data was collected at New Brunswick (Stage 1) and Alice Springs (Stage 2) using semi-structured in-depth interviews with six participants. The findings of Stage 1: New Brunswick and Stage 2: Alice Springs, showed that Western social work was seen as 'the other' and out of step with local Indigenous ways of being and knowing. In other words, Western ways of seeing were another way of not seeing local Indigenous ways of being and knowing. Participants for State 1: New Brunswick, viewed Indigenous social work practice as a way of life rather than a way of social work practice, particularly for First Nations social workers. The findings for Stage 2: Alice Springs, suggested that social work practice should do much more in trying to develop an Indigenous social work practice model to work with Aboriginal clients and communities (and not for the bureaucratic requirements of human service agencies). This study enhances understanding that social work is colonization and that the mainstream Western 'professional' model of social work is incompatible in working with Indigenous Peoples. This study found the more social workers adjusted their practice to suit Indigenous culture (as expressed by the needs and aspirations of Indigenous Peoples themselves), the less it began to look like 'conventional' social work, seeing that social work theory, textbooks, codes of ethics, and international standards and definitions are foreign to Indigenous cultures. The findings of this study indicate the potential for social work and Indigenous Nations studies scholars to work together to build 'ground up' culturally situated Indigenous 'helping' practice frameworks that actively promote Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.

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