British Journal of Social Work (2021) 00, 1–18

doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcab083

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Social Work as a Human Rights
Profession: An Action Framework
Didier Reynaert 1,*, Siebren Nachtergaele1,
Nadine De Stercke1, Hildegard Gobeyn1 and Rudi Roose2

1
Department of Social Work, HOGENT University of Applied Sciences and Arts, V.
Vaerwyckweg 1, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
2
Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy, Ghent University, Dunantlaan 2, 9000
Ghent, Belgium

*Correspondence to Didier Reynaert, Department of Social Work, HOGENT University

of Applied Sciences and Arts, V. Vaerwyckweg 1, 9000 Ghent, Belgium. E-mail:
didier.reynaert@hogent.be

Abstract
Human rights are foundational to social work, as recognised in the global definition,
leading many to consider social work a human rights profession. Although human
rights has become an important compass for social work, comprehensive frameworks
for understanding the ‘practice’ of human rights in social work are still limited. Only
recently attempts have been made to fill this gap. This article seeks to continue these
efforts and contribute to a better understanding of how social work constructs,
deconstructs and reconstructs ideas of human rights in daily practice. We investigated
the following research question: ‘How do social workers “act” when using human
rights as a framework for practice?’ We used a qualitative research design consisting
of ethnographic research and focus groups, with both social workers and service-users
participating. Based on our research, we developed five building blocks for an action
framework for human rights in social work: (i) systemworld-oriented action; (ii) life-
world-oriented action; (iii) participatory action; (iv) joined-up action and (v) politicised
action. These building blocks give a comprehensive account for the discursive practice
of human rights in social work.

Keywords: human rights, human rights profession, joined-up action, lifeworld-oriented

action, participatory action, politicised action, systemworld-oriented action

Accepted: April 2021

# The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf

www.basw.co.uk of The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved.
Page 2 of 18 Didier Reynaert et al.

Introduction

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Human rights are foundational to social work, as recognised in the
global definition, leading many to consider social work a human rights
profession (Healy, 2008; Staub-Bernasconi, 2016; Mapp et al., 2019).
Staub-Bernasconi (2016), together with Gatenio Gabel (2015), among
others, acknowledges the historical connection of social work with hu-
man rights. In recent years, the recognition of social work as a human
rights profession gained renewed attention in social work scholarship. In
his book ‘Practicing rights. Human rights-based approaches to social
work practice’, Androff (2016) makes a comprehensive account of the
state of human rights in social work. He shows how (inter)national social
work organisations adopted human rights in their codes of ethics, how
social work scholars increasingly published books and articles on human
rights or how social work education developed a range of training mate-
rials and educational programmes on human rights. Based on his analy-
sis, Androff concludes that ‘The growth of scholarship and education
focused on human rights suggests that the field is turning towards human
rights, rediscovering its rights-based roots. It is now undeniable that
there is a consensus that human rights are important and relevant to so-
cial work.’ (Androff, 2016, p. 10). These observations are in line with
conclusions of Cubillos-Vega (2017), who conducted a study on the sci-
entific output on human rights in social work based on articles published
in international indexed journals between 2000 and 2015. She notes that
in recent years, the academic output on social work and human rights
gradually increased. However, Cubillos-Vega’s (2017) study also reveals
that published articles were primarily of theoretical nature. From the
fifty-seven articles analysed, hardly one-third (sixteen) were of an empir-
ical type. This trend is striking, Cubillos-Vega argues, because of the na-
ture of the discipline of social work, taking a position between theory
and practice. Already in 2012, Ife came to a similar conclusion: ‘Much
of the academic debate about human rights remains at the theoretical
level; less has been written about the practice of human rights. . . . There
is little articulation of what it means in practice for professionals to
claim that their work is based on human rights, and so human rights re-
main a “nice idea” rather than a solid foundation for the development
of practice theories and methodologies.’ (Ife, 2012, pp. 10–11). Despite
the ground-breaking work of several pioneers in the domain of social
work and human rights (e.g. Reichert, 2003; Wronka, 2008; Ife, 2009,
2012; Lundy, 2011), the practice of human right still remains a black
box. To date, social work scholarship insufficiently succeed to gain prac-
tical knowledge showing how social workers ‘act’ when using the frame-
work of human rights. Together with Ife, we acknowledge the
presumption that human rights in social work have a discursive
 Social Work as a Human Rights Profession Page 3 of 18

character, as they need to be permanently constructed, deconstructed

and reconstructed throughout social work practice. ‘Social workers need

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to see themselves as active participants in this discursive process, and in-
deed social work practice itself can be seen as part of the ongoing pro-
cess of the reconstruction of human rights. It is partly through social
work practice that human rights are operationalised, and hence defined.’
(Ife, 2012, p. 133). Social work should recognise its actorship or agency
in constructing human rights and social work scholarship should consci-
entiously scrutinise this construction process of human rights through so-
cial work practice.
Recent launches in social work scholarship rose to this challenge. In
2015, the SpringerBriefs in Rights-Based Approaches to Social Work
were launched. The series aims to develop a social work practice
grounded in human rights by presenting and reflecting on new methods
(Gatenio Gabel, 2015). The Journal of Human Rights and Social Work,
established in 2016, has similar aims. In the inaugural issue, the editors-
in-chief state that the journal ‘offers the opportunity for educators, prac-
titioners, administrators, and students in this and related disciplines to
have a voice and to expand their knowledge base on issues within hu-
man rights practice, knowledge of human rights tools, and to develop
skills practicing from a human rights perspective’ (Gatenio Gabel and
Mapp, 2016, p. 1). Additionally, several social work scholars have been
developing practice approaches for human rights in social work. Androff
(2016, 2018), for instance, seeks to integrate the five-principles frame-
work of human rights (human dignity, non-discrimination, participation,
transparency and accountability) into the social work arena. According
to Androff, this framework can offer an integrative account across a
wide range of social work practices (see also Mapp et al., 2019). One
step further is the proposal of McPherson (McPherson, 2015a; Mapp
et al., 2019; McPherson and Abell, 2020), which contains a comprehen-
sive framework for human rights practice in social work (HRPSW). It
comprises three pillars of practice: a human rights lens, human rights
methods and human rights goals. McPherson (2015a) explains that the
HRPSW model can be useful for both social work practice and social
work education. What these practice models demonstrate is the in-
creased academic interest in practice approaches of human rights in so-
cial work (McPherson, 2015b).
In this article, we build upon these efforts and present an action
framework for human rights in social work. Our action framework
expands the above mentioned models in an important way. It provides
an understanding of human rights in social work in the context of a dif-
ferent welfare regime. Both the studies of Androff and McPherson are
USA based, thereby confirming Cubillos-Vega’s (2017) observation of
an Anglo-Saxon hegemony in social work scholarship on human rights.
However, different social welfare regimes show different traditions of
Page 4 of 18 Didier Reynaert et al.

social work (Lorenz, 2001, 2008), associated with different understand-

ings of human rights (Alseth, 2020). Our study was conducted in

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Belgium, which is generally conceived as a conservative welfare state,
distinct from the liberal welfare regime of the USA. Conservative wel-
fare regimes have a certain tradition with social rights in particular.
Additionally, conservative welfare regimes are characterised by a wel-
fare state architecture of corporatism, balancing civil society’s interest
and state power (Esping-Andersen 1990; Lorenz, 2001; Dean, 2002). It is
within this corporatist structure that human rights take shape with social
workers developing a human right-based practice.

Research design

Because of the open character of our research question (‘How does so-
cial workers act when using human rights as a framework for practice?’),
we chose a qualitative research design (Shaw and Holland, 2014; Carey,
2012), developed in two parts. The first part consists of ethnographic re-
search; the second, of focus groups.

Ethnographic research

Ethnographic research allows one to understand complex practices in

their ‘natural setting’ (D’Cruz and Jones, 2004) by being ‘involved in the
ongoing, daily world of the people being studied’ (Fielding, 2008, p.
269). Being part of and participating in human-rights-based practices in
social work allows the ethnographer to get to know the logic, dynamics
and meanings behind these practices. For this study, collaboration was
set up with one of the eight regional institutions for community develop-
ment in Flanders, Belgium. These institutions are recognised and subsi-
dised by the Flemish government through the 1991 Act on Community
Development. The overall mission of the institutions for community de-
velopment is to contribute to realising the right to a decent life for peo-
ple living in vulnerable life conditions. The institutions for community
development explicitly use human rights as a framework to realise their
mission. In particular, they focus on social rights as they are recognised
in the Belgian Constitution: the right to decent housing, the right to edu-
cation, the right to social security, the right to health care, the right to
work, the right to a healthy living environment and the right to cultural
and social development. The participatory approach is typical for the
work of the institutions for community development. They are not work-
ing just ‘for’, but above all ‘with’ people living in vulnerable life condi-
tions. Therefore, the institutions for community development are an
interesting case for investigating the meaning of social work as a human
 Social Work as a Human Rights Profession Page 5 of 18

rights profession. Our research took place in the institution for commu-
nity development in East Flanders, one of the five Flemish provinces in

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Belgium. In collaboration with the institution, we decided to select two
human rights domains to study: housing and education. These domains
could be considered as exemplary to study social work as a human rights
profession.
Research methods used in ethnographic research can be very diverse.
For this study, we used a documentary review, participant observation
and conversation-style interviews with key informants (D’Cruz and
Jones, 2004). For the documentary review, we used documents produced
by social workers who are active in the institution for community devel-
opment. These documents gave us an insight into the work of the insti-
tution regarding the role of social work in ‘doing’ human rights. Policy
notes, minutes of meetings, annual reports, etc. were all considered.
Because in ethnographic research, it is important to understand the par-
ticular historical and socio-cultural context of the practices being
researched (Bryman, 2012), additional documents produced outside the
institution for community development were selected. They were used
to develop an environmental analysis in order to ‘capture’ the work of
the institution in relation to the broader policy context (demographic
data, a ‘map’ of the available welfare organisations, the history of partic-
ular neighbourhoods, etc.).
For the participant observation, the relevant activities to understand
the work of the institution for community development were selected in
mutual consultation with a ‘gatekeeper’ (Fielding, 2008) of the institu-
tion. Gradually, the researcher also spontaneously took part in a variety
of activities. Participation by the researcher was always overt (see
Bryman, 2012). Field notes were kept during or directly after the partici-
pant observation. These field notes took the form of detailed descrip-
tions of particular events and of people’s actions in these events, as well
as the researcher’s initial reflections on these events. In total, participant
observations took four months and more than 400 h. Time was divided
equally between the domains of education and housing.
The third method we used was conversation-style interviews with key
informants. In order to guarantee the validity of the observations, provi-
sional ideas on the findings, striking observations or remaining questions
were ‘shared with the member’s world’ (Fielding, 2008) and checked.
These ‘ethnographic interviews’ often took the form of ‘interviews on
the spot’ and gave a deeper understanding of the practice being studied.
For both education and housing, 26 people participated in an interview
(total n ¼ 52). In the case of education, the group consisted of eight com-
munity development workers, twelve social workers from partner organi-
sations (civil servants from the city, school social workers, school
directors, social workers from the public centre for social welfare
[PCSW], social workers from poverty-related organisations, etc.) and six
Page 6 of 18 Didier Reynaert et al.

service-users from the institution for community development. The ser-

vice-users all had a background of living in poverty, and were selected

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as members of a parent group from a local school for primary
education.
In the case of housing, the participants were six community develop-
ment workers, eleven social workers from partner organisations (civil
servants from the city, social workers from the social housing company,
social workers from the PCSW, social workers from poverty-related
organisations, etc.) and nine service-users. The service-users were se-
lected based on their participation in the working group on housing that
is organised by the institution for community development. This working
group consists of people who all face problems with regard to housing.
All interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. The researchers had no
personal connection whatsoever with the institution for community de-
velopment. The only professional link that the researchers had with the
research context was expertise in the domain of community development
and encounters with representatives of the institution in the context of
education-related activities (e.g. internships).

Focus groups

In the second part of the study, focus groups were set up. While the gen-
eral aim of a focus group is to discuss a specific topic (Bryman, 2012),
we had an additional 2-fold goal. First, we wanted to flesh out several
issues that were not clear after the ethnographic research (deepening).
Second, we wanted to explore whether the findings of our ethnographic
research that took place in the context of community development were
applicable in other domains of social work (broadening). We chose focus
groups because they allow for creating rich data, enabling in-depth
analysis. We selected people with a more expert profile in social work
and human rights. The selection criteria used for participants were (i)
being familiar with human rights in a social work context and (ii) having
a generalist view on social work practice or policy. Participants from the
focus group were senior staff members of various social work organisa-
tions, as well as lecturers and professors who teach social work at uni-
versities and universities of applied sciences in Flanders. Four focus
groups of four to six people were organised (total n ¼ 18). In addition,
seven in-depth interviews were organised with experts who, because of
practical considerations, were not able to attend the focus groups. All
the focus groups were led by two people: the researcher who conducted
the ethnographic research and whose role it was to bring up the content
for discussion and a supervisor who was the moderator of the focus
group. Each focus group lasted approximately an hour and a half, and
each was organised around three statements: (i) Participatory action, as
 Social Work as a Human Rights Profession Page 7 of 18

a foundation of a human rights-based approach in social work, can also

exclude people; (ii) a human rights-based approach in social work con-

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tributes to individualisation and responsibilisation and (iii) a human
rights-based approach that starts from rules and laws (a top-down per-
spective) obstructs an approach that starts from the needs of people (a
bottom-up perspective). The discussion in the focus groups was organ-
ised based on the five-stage model proposed by Cronin (2008): (1) intro-
duction; (2) opening; (3) introductory statement; (4) key questions and
(5) ending questions. Both the focus group discussions and interviews
were audiotaped and transcribed.

Ethics statement

The study was approved and funded by the Research Council of the
HOGENT University of Applied Sciences and Arts. It was carried out
in collaboration with Ghent University in compliance with the ethical
standards of both the institutions. Informed consent was obtained from
all of the participants after an extensive explanation of the research
project.

Data analysis

For the data analysis, an inductive approach was chosen (Hodkinsons,

2008). More specifically, a thematic analysis was done on the materials
obtained from the ethnographic research. The analysis was executed in
two steps by the two first authors. In the first step, both authors sepa-
rately analysed the same six interviews (two community development
workers, two social workers form partner organisations and two service-
users) for each domain (education and housing). The analysis was based
on the six-step model developed by Braun and Clarke (2006; see also
Teater, 2017). Initial codes were assigned to the materials and after-
wards they were grouped around several themes or ‘building blocks’. To
answer the question of how social work acts when using human rights,
we were looking for themes or building blocks that constitute a compre-
hensive action-framework for human rights in social work. We were par-
ticularly looking for different or even conflicting interpretations or
constructions of human rights by social work, as these different interpre-
tations could clearly demonstrate the action component of our frame-
work. After individual analysis by the two authors, the results were
pooled and discussed. This working method increases the inter-rater reli-
ability among the researchers (Oluwatayo, 2012). The result of this first
step was a first draft of an action framework for human rights in social
work. In the second step, the second author continued the analysis of
Page 8 of 18 Didier Reynaert et al.

the remaining interviews and also analysed the documentary review and
the participant observations.

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Although the analysis was primarily data-driven, we, as researchers
with an interest in social work and human rights, could not disengage
from our pre-existing knowledge. As Braun and Clarke explain, ‘data
are not coded in an epistemological vacuum’ (2006, p. 14). So the re-
search context of community development coloured our data to a certain
extent. As explained earlier, the community development organisations
explicitly use human rights as a framework for their practice. In recent
years, they acquired a great deal of expertise in the field of human
rights, which has been reflected in numerous reports, memoranda and
suchlike. Furthermore, as social work is a practice characterised by inter-
connectedness with local communities, working with vulnerable people,
both at the micro-level of individual support and at the macro-level of
structural change, it is no coincidence that related themes emerged from
the data. Altogether, the first phase analysis yielded five themes or
building blocks for an action framework for human rights in social work:
(i) systemworld-oriented action, (ii) lifeworld-oriented action, (iii) partic-
ipatory action, (iv) joined-up action and (v) politicised action. In the
next step, these findings were presented to all the authors and discussed.
This did not result in any adjustments at the level of themes, but it did
result in some changes to the topics included under each building block.
The remaining points of discussion and things that were unclear were
taken to the focus groups. After the focus groups were held, the same
procedure was followed: the four transcribed focus groups and seven ad-
ditional interviews were analysed by the two first authors, and then dis-
cussed with all the authors, until consensus was reached. Again, this did
not result in any adjustments at the level of the building blocks.

Results
Based on our data, an action framework for human rights in social work
was developed, consisting of five building blocks. In the next part of this
article, we present these five building blocks.

Systemworld-oriented action

The right to social support would be meaningless without social services;

the right to education would be meaningless without schools; the right
to decent housing would be meaningless without houses and the right to
health care would be meaningless without hospitals. All these systems—
social services, schools, houses, health care, social security, etc.—are con-
sidered parts of the systemworld. The systemworld can be defined as all
 Social Work as a Human Rights Profession Page 9 of 18

the institutionalised societal resources necessary for the realisation of

human rights. Access to these systems is often difficult for people living

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in vulnerable life conditions. They frequently experience high
thresholds.
The problem is that you have to be well informed and to know the right
person. . . . How many people know about the income guarantee for
elderly people? A lot of people probably know about the premium for
housing, but how many of them are actually applying for it? Definitely
not that many, because it requires a lot of jargon that keeps people from
applying. (a service-user)
It is a recurring complaint that social systems are inaccessible, because
people who need care and support must deal with bureaucracy. The
problem is not just the large number of forms that need to be filled in.
Social workers also send people from pillar to post, so that ultimately
people give up and do not apply for the support they are entitled to. In
the end, social rights are often not realised.
We do not understand just how high the thresholds are for people who
are already in a vulnerable position, who are living in difficult
circumstances, and who are then confronted with a multitude of services
that are not working in an integrated way, have cultural thresholds, etc.
We have no idea what it means to live in poverty, how hard that
is . . . so that support by social services and an emancipatory approach
don’t mean anything. (a social worker, institution for community
development)
An important topic related to creating accessible social institutions
concerns the distinction between ‘universal’ and ‘selective’ social sys-
tems. Based on a human rights perspective, social workers often argue
for universal social systems. However, some social workers point out the
risks of this approach.
Human rights are of course for everyone. But I think that certain groups
are more easily deprived of them. These are certainly socially vulnerable
groups. . . . Other groups have more power to make their voices heard.
In any case, they also have easier access to certain rights. Education, for
example, is more in line with middle-class culture. (a social worker,
institution for community development)
Another social worker puts it even more bluntly:
That is actually a waste of time and resources if we focus on all citizens.
. . . In such an inclusive organisation, time and energy are not focused on
the most vulnerable people. (a social worker, institution for community
development)
To resolve the tension between a universal and a selective approach,
some social workers argue for so-called progressive universalism.
According to this line of thinking, social support should in principle be
universal in orientation, and therefore should be addressed to everyone.
Page 10 of 18 Didier Reynaert et al.

However, these universal social systems should simultaneously develop

ways of supporting people living in vulnerable life conditions who may

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fall through the cracks, by supplementing them with selective measures
‘within’ these universal systems. So a community centre can be open to
everyone, but for people living in poverty, extra support should be pro-
vided ‘within’ this community centre to guarantee their participation.
We shouldn’t become the home of the poor either. We have to keep it a
bit open without opening it up again to everyone, because then you
know that the weakest people will fall out again. (a social worker,
institution for community development)

Lifeworld-oriented action

Systemworld-oriented action has its counterpart in lifeworld-oriented ac-

tion. Lifeworld-oriented action is about social workers making connec-
tions with the experiences from people’s everyday lifeworld. The focus is
not so much on institutionalised resources, but rather on the practices
that people themselves develop to cope with daily experiences of injus-
tice and with violations of human rights.
Actually, being in the field, close to the people, makes you better able
to understand the underlying causes . . . you can more easily
contextualise situations. People don’t always say what they want to say
or what they think. If you know the context, you can understand that
people formulate things in a certain way but mean it differently. (a
social worker, institution for community development)
People living in vulnerable life conditions often find that their living
environments are insufficiently understood by social workers as well as
others. At the same time, they experience difficulties in explaining their
own situation to social work organisations.
A lifeworld orientation also requires that social workers facilitate the
opportunities to connect different lifeworlds. Connecting lifeworlds can
contribute to sharing diverse experiences and to creating connectedness.
One time there was a ‘week of empathisation’. This is good for involving
citizens so they can also experience it that way. They cannot imagine
what it is like. . . . It is good to involve them, so they get a very
different view of our problems, because those people don’t normally
have to deal with these problems. They should do this a lot more,
through a campaign set up by the working group on housing, so these
people are motivated to join our conversations and to experience what is
going on. (a service-user)
Social workers also point out several risks that might be associated
with a lifeworld approach. Specifically, they warn against a narrowing
view on social problems where not only are social problems observed in
 Social Work as a Human Rights Profession Page 11 of 18

the lifeworlds of people, but also solutions for these social problems are
sought within the same lifeworlds. However, problems that manifest in

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the lifeworlds of people often originate from external causes, such as the
labour market, the housing market or the school system. Therefore, so-
cial workers should always try to link issues raised in the lifeworld with
the way social systems are organised.
That double movement has to be part of our work. That is why we say
that you should not see our work merely as directed downwards. You
have to work from the bottom up, but that movement must also go
upwards. . . . You have to link the work with a broader movement of
social organisations. They help to raise the issues of social inequality,
and they can move society in the direction of redistribution. . . . It is
even more necessary to set up broader alliances, so that all those little
things that happen can become part of a broader context and become
part of a wider environment. (a social worker, institution for community
development)
The final crucial aspect of social work with lifeworld-oriented action is
social duty in public deliberation.
The articulation of different needs of different groups is the core of
democracy; that is a social issue. Which needs do we as a society
recognise, and which not? Which needs can be defined as rights, how
are they recognised, and can we organise ourselves accordingly? These
are public debates. These are collective discussions, because not having
your needs recognised, and, consequently, not being seen or heard in
society, is usually a collective and structural problem. (a lecturer on
social work)

Participatory action

Participation is a loose concept, but nevertheless a key notion when talk-

ing about an action framework for human rights in social work. After
all, shaping human rights requires dialogue between social workers and
citizens about how to construct human rights and for what purpose.
Social workers point to two complementary features of participation.
First, participatory action entails involvement, connection and reciproc-
ity between social workers and citizens. Here, social workers focus on
the ‘relational’ characteristic of the practice of participation.
Participative work cannot be one-sided. You cannot expect your client
to participate in everything that comes out of your sleeve. I think the art
is to participate with them, and to play it by ear: ‘What is going on
here?’ If you as a social worker participate with them, you are going to
exclude far fewer people than you would if you expect them to come
and participate with you. (a social worker, institution for community
development)
Page 12 of 18 Didier Reynaert et al.

Social workers also recognise that participation is not simply a rela-

tional issue, but that it entails a ‘structural’ approach as well.

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If I say that we have to be more individual, this doesn’t mean that we
have to find an individual solution. What I mean is that we have to
approach people individually and then hear from there what problems
those people or those groups are experiencing. It is also important that
policy acknowledges the stories of those people. (a social worker,
institution for community development)
Participatory action comes with many pitfalls. One is the social exclu-
sion caused by participatory practices. For social work, it is important to
be aware of these processes of exclusion and to identify possible barriers
and difficulties. In general, social workers indicate that ‘stronger’ people
are the ones who participate in available activities, as these practices re-
quire a certain assertiveness or particular social or cultural skills.
Participation usually starts from a certain framework and not everyone
fits into that framework. It also requires certain skills from clients—skills
they don’t always have. So participatory practices exclude people, but at
the same time, this makes us aware that we need to find a different way
to involve those excluded. (social worker, institution for community
development)
Another pitfall has to do with participation in social policy. One of
the working methods of the institution for community development is to
coach people who live in vulnerable life conditions to speak with policy-
makers. This involves a risk of instrumentalisation, not only by policy-
makers, but also by social workers, as these people adapt themselves to
the preferences of social workers.
In everything we do, of course, it is important that we let people make
their own choices. But to what extent we, as community workers, steer
those choices . . . I’m not sure. . . . We wouldn’t say it like that, but we
do come up with the solutions. . . . We start a project and then we
involve people in it. (a social worker, institution for community
development)

Joined-up action

Social work exists in many fields of practice. This can lead to physical or
metaphorical borders between these fields. The over-organised profes-
sional field of social work often results in fragmentation or compartmen-
talisation. Social work from a human rights perspective should question
these borders and even try to break through them. This is what is meant
by joined-up action. Joined-up action aims to counteract structures and
logic that withhold the realisation of human rights in social work.
 Social Work as a Human Rights Profession Page 13 of 18

A trend in the social field is to divide everything into separate human

rights or compartments. That is how social policy is organised. A

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human-rights-based perspective implies an integrated or joined-up
approach. This requires breaking through this administrative
compartmentalisation of human rights. (a social worker, institution for
community development)
Besides the limitations caused by the organisation of social work in
different fields, social work is often restricted by the proliferation of
rules, procedures, protocols, etc. From a human rights perspective, this
requires social workers to push boundaries.
It is about pushing and crossing boundaries, looking outside the range of
tasks, thinking outside the box. Laws are not violated, but rules are;
these are agreements, and they can be interpreted more broadly or
reinterpreted . . . . (a social worker, community health centre)
Social workers call for questioning rules and procedures. Joined-up ac-
tion here means that social workers should use their professional discre-
tion in order to be guided by their ethical duty instead of following
fixed rules and arrangements.
Having sufficient professional discretion is very important, especially if
you work with the most vulnerable groups. You need to take the side of
these people instead of working with a double agenda. In any case, they
will feel this immediately. But secondly, the more professional discretion
social workers use in a system, the more they can defend the rights of
vulnerable groups in society. . . . It is important that they make full use of
their professional discretion in order to develop a social reflex as much as
possible. (a social worker, institution for community development)

Politicising action

Politicisation concerns questioning and contesting power. Power is

mostly conceived of as something that belongs to societal structures, like
politics or the judiciary system. Exercising power may result in injustice
and in inhuman living conditions. The role of social work is thought to
be to collectivise individual experiences of human rights violations and
to bring these to the public debate. Politicised social work should use
political advocacy to denounce structures and systems of power that
cause violations of human rights.
You can try to help the person on an individual level to realise his or
her rights, but you will always come across structural issues. (a social
worker, institution for community development)
Power is also something that is situated in speaking about particular
social issues. These discourses of power have a significant impact on
people. The role of social work is to question these dominant orders of
Page 14 of 18 Didier Reynaert et al.

society. A social worker from a poverty-related organisation working

with young people explains:

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Many of the young people who arrive at our organisation are caught up
in the ‘it’s your own fault’ discourse . . . . These young people are caught
in a system and therefore they often blame themselves: ‘I think it’s
me’ . . . . For example, education is an often recurring subject: 90% have
attended special education. How is that possible? Is it only because of
the context of poverty that they are being referred to this type of
education, largely determining their future? In our organisation, they
learn that this is happening not only to them, but this is something
systemic. We explain that it is caused by our educational system failing
to give everyone equal opportunities. By doing this, we are ‘de-blaming’
them: there is an individual responsibility, but there is also a social
responsibility. For them, this is a process of awareness-raising about how
society works and about who decides what. In the beginning, this often
alienates these young people, these issues of politics, policy, human
rights. (a social worker, poverty organisation).
However, because of the often extensive subsidisation of social work
organisations by the government, the politicising role of social work is fre-
quently at odds with the autonomy and independence of the organisation.
You are actually in a sort of a split, which keeps you from going fully
for human rights. We cannot just be a protest movement. We can never
go full 100 per cent. We can do that, but only with the blessing of a
minister. (a social worker, institution for community development)
Therefore, social workers should be aware of depoliticising tendencies
that increasingly emphasise the controlling side of social work over its
emancipatory character.
The pressure is increasing for social workers to exercise control. I think it is
important that social workers be very conscious of this: what is my task? . . .
You see that organisations that are not complying are experiencing
consequences. . . . We owe it to ourselves to say why we stand for. If we
don’t do that, we do not take our clients seriously. We must unite as social
workers to make it clear to policymakers: this is social work and this is not
social work. . . . We must be able to define our role as social workers: what
do we serve? We cannot be used for everything. (a social worker,
organisation supporting people with a migration background)
Social workers indicate that they should be much more concerned
with their self-critical role. Their own actions as social workers should
also be scrutinised in some form of ‘self-politicisation’.

Conclusion
Our qualitative research on how social work acts when aiming to realise
human rights reveals five building blocks. They flesh out what it can
 Social Work as a Human Rights Profession Page 15 of 18

mean for social work to be a human rights profession. It is important to

consider these five building blocks in connection to one another as an

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action framework for human rights in social work. The key point of this
framework is the recognition that human rights in social work are collec-
tively constructed and that social workers play a crucial role in this con-
struction process. To state that human rights are collectively constructed
is to acknowledge the discursive, contested and complex nature of hu-
man rights in social work (Cemlyn, 2008; Ife, 2012). There is no single
way to construct human rights. On the contrary, trying to realise human
rights is a process characterised by a plurality of potential constructions,
based on the plurality of interests of the communities and community
members involved. Part of our data also show opposing constructions of
human rights ‘within’ building blocks. The discussion on systemworld-
oriented action, for instance, demonstrates that some social workers are
in favour of selective social services, while others defend universal ones.
The same goes for participatory action: being recognised as an agent
and being acknowledged as a partner in dialogue can conflict with
instrumentalising tendencies. It is remarkable that the conflicting per-
spectives each underpin their opposite positions from the same frame-
work of human rights. Another part of our data show opposing views on
human rights ‘between’ building blocks. This is probably most obvious
in the building blocks of lifeworld-oriented action and systemworld-ori-
ented action, which can be considered opposites. The approach of start-
ing from the needs experienced by communities seems to be difficult to
reconcile with the bureaucratic procedures of institutions within a sys-
tem, although both rely on human rights.
Our action framework has an ambiguous relationship with previous ac-
tion models. It resonates only partially with Androff’s five-principles
framework (Androff, 2016), particularly regarding the principle of partici-
pation. The principle of accountability in Androff’s model is closely linked
to the building block of politicised action. For the other principles, the
two frameworks can be considered complementary. The same goes for
McPhersons’s HRPSW framework (2015; see also McPherson and Abell,
2020). Some of the human rights methods in her model share similarities
with our action framework: participation is a shared concern; accountabil-
ity and activism correspond to politicised action; community and interdis-
ciplinary collaboration are related to lifeworld-oriented action and micro/
macro integration and capacity building resonate with systemworld-ori-
ented action. On the other hand, the human rights lens and human rights
goals are absent from our action framework. As for earlier research in
the Flemish context, our action framework agrees with some aspects of it
but not others. Vandekinderen et al. (2020) conducted a research project
to explore the common ground of social work in Flanders. They identified
five building blocks that are considered the DNA of social work in
Flanders. Of these, politicising work is the only building block that both
Page 16 of 18 Didier Reynaert et al.

frameworks have in common. It is no surprise that this building block

also shows up in our results, as politicising work is a main concern in the

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work of community development organisations in Flanders.
The observed divergences between our own action framework and the
practice approaches of Androff and McPherson can be explained in dif-
ferent ways. In part, this is probably due to the different research con-
texts in which the projects took place. In our project, collaboration was
set up with organisations in the field of community development.
Although we included focus group discussions to see whether our find-
ings were transferable, additional research in other social work domains
could reveal different emphases or even different building blocks.
Furthermore, comparative studies between countries could provide more
insight into the international transferability of our action framework. As
explained in the ‘Introduction’ section, the nature of social work is
closely linked to the welfare regime of a country, which in turn ‘set the
scene’ for understanding human rights. How different welfare regimes
affect the translation of human rights in social work practice remains a
blind spot in social work scholarship. However, this is of particular rele-
vance as welfare regimes all over the world are facing far-reaching trans-
formation that have a significant impact on how human rights in social
work are understood. Further research might reveal the link between
the nature of different welfare regimes and the way social workers use
human rights in their practice. Finally, although we included the voices
of service-users in our research project, they often remain left out of
rights-based practice literature. Further research on human rights in so-
cial work should pay much more attention to the perspective of service-
users and to the way that a human rights framework affects their situa-
tions and life conditions. These issues require an empirical shift in order
to fully understand social work as a human rights profession.
Understanding these issues could lend more nuance to the discussions
on the relationship between social work and human rights, and would
move this debate beyond empty slogans and catchphrases.

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