BISHOP STUART UNIVERSITY

FACULTY: BUSINESS ECONOMICS AND GOVERNANCE

COURSE: SOCIAL WORK AND SOCIAL ADMINISTRATION

COURSE UNIT: SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE WITH REFUGEES

PROGRAMME: WEEKEND

LECTURER: MS NAMARA CHRISTINE

DATE OF SUBMISSION: 14/03/2021

NAME REG.NO SIGNATURE

NAHABWE SARAH 19/BSU/BSWSA/043 ………………………….

AINEMBABAZI YVONNE 19/BSU/BSWSA/009 ………………………….

TUKAHIRWA EVAS 19/BSU/BSWSA/016 ………………………….

TUKWASIBWE EUNICE 20/BSU/BSWSA/2031 ………………………….

ANSANSIRA FORTUNATE 19/BSU/BSWSA/085 ………………………….

Questions

Write short notes on the following concepts or group of words in practice with refugees;

a) Evolution of tern refugees;

b) Social work intervention skills with refugees;
c) 5 models / theories of working with refugees;
d) Actors in refugee management affairs;
Who is a refugee?

A refugee is someone who has been forces to flee his/her country because of persecutions, war or
violence.

A refugee ha a well-founded fear of persecutions or reasons of race, religion, nationality,

political opinion or membership in a particular social group. More so, or generally speaking, this
is someone who has crossed national boundaries and who cannot return to home country safely.

Such a person can be called asylum seeker until granted a refugee status by the contracting state
or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

a) Evolution of the term refugee

Evolution simply means a grudgel development of something or it can also be defined as a net
directional change or any commutative change in the characteristics of organisms or populations
over many generations.

Below are the short notes of the following

The term refugee derives from the route word refugee from old French refugee meaning hiding
place.

It refers to giving shelter all protection from danger to distress from latin fugere (to flee).

It comes from French and was first used in the modern contexts following the revocation of the
edict of Nantes in (1685) which sent the protestant Huguenots to flee the religious persecution
by the French King Luis the sixteen (XVI) 16th.

According to germane, this was a new group of people who were leaving in France and became
identified as refugees and with that, the word began progress into the English language.

The term morphed by the 18th century according to Germano, to encompass more than just
people fleeing religious persecutions to people fleeing war, violence and other forms of
persecutions.
b) Social work intervention skills with refugees

According to National Association of Social Workers, social workers are often stopped from
effectively assisting immigrant and refugee clients due to punitive laws and policies denying
access to needed resources. To that end social workers help in designing and coordinating
community programs.

The following are the social worker intervention skills with refugee;

1. Advocacy; it can be defined as being a voice for others. For example, a social worker
advocates or speaks on behalf of the refugees for better rights to them as refugees, the rights
include; a right to have food, education, medication, shelter, and freedom among others,
because just like any other residents/ citizens of a country refugees should have these
services too.
2. Referrals; according to the national association of social workers, a social worker is
supposed to refer his / her client for better services such as medication, education because
the refugees’ children also need better education just like the must citizens therefore a social
worker refers those that are capable and worth to better schools where they can, also have
better education or to the sick to better hospitals for better medication.
3. Guidance and counseling; A social worker is supposed to do counseling where necessary,
for example, refugees have conflicts among themselves just like other people do that is to
say they fight and sometimes have quarrels among themselves over something or even small
issues, so a social worker has to intervene and give guide them in order to settle their issues
amongst them and helps them live in harmony.
4. Social workers may also work with newly arrived refugees and their families by helping
them adjust to their new surroundings. This may include leading cultural orientations,
providing job placement assistance, supporting clients through social services and referrals
among others.
5. Resolving the client immigration status; in such cases, social workers usually collaborate
with legal professionals. Apart from connecting their clients with attorney, their role may
 include gathering important documentation, writing detailed reports that can support their
clients case, and serving as a primary contact to law enforcement officials.

c) 5 models / theories of working with refugees

1) Ravenstien’s laws of migration;

The first attempt to spell out the ‘laws of migration’ was made by E.G Ravenstien as early as
1885. Using the birth place data, Ravenstien identifies a set of generalizations, which he called
as ‘law of migration’ concerning inter-country migration in Britain in the nineteenth century
and these generalizations hold good today.

2) Gravity model;

It’s one of the most important contributions of geography in the fields of migration analysis is
with respect to the relationship between distance and migration. Gravity model based on
Newton’s law of gravitational goes one step further and states that the volume of migration
between any two centers is the function of not only distance between them but also their
population size.

3) Stouffer’s theory of mobility;

S.A Stouffer, an American sociologist, introduced one such modification in the gravity model.
He formulated his intervening opportunity model in 1940 and claimed that there is no necessary
relationship between mobility and distance. His model suggests that the number of refugees
from origin countries to destination is directly proportional to the number of intervening
opportunities between the origin and the destination.

4) Lee’s theory;

Everette Lee proposed other comprehensive theory of migration in 1966. He begins his
formulations with factors, which lead to spatial mobility of population in any area and these
factors include these associated with the place of origin, place of destination such as wars, food
scarcity, political and religious persecutions and other forms of violence among others. The Lee
theory is always selective and influence by pull-push factors. It is always the pull factor that
lead to fleeing of refugees to other countries rather than push factors even that intervening
obstacles do influence fleeing of refugees, these factors include mountains, forests, deserts, and
cities and bodies of water among others.

d) Actors in refugee management affairs

Refugees also have orders in their management in different camps they live;

Just like families have a head who is a father or countries led by the president, refugees also have
their leader and in most countries or states, they are usually a built and run by the government,
the United Nations, international organizations (such as the international committee) of the Red
Cross) or Non-Governmental organizations.

The state still is one responsible for protecting the refugee, because it is the one that supervises
the arrangements for their protection.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) which is a non-political,
humanitarian agency was created by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1950
and began its operations in 1st January 1951 to provide international protection to refugees and
promote durable solutions to their problems.

It is through the Refugee Status Determination (RSD) which is the legal or administrative
process by which the government or UNHCR determine whether a person seeking international,
regional and or national law.

In conclusion, the world refugee day has occurred annually on 20th June since 2000 by a special
United Nations General Assembly Resolution.