Advocating access to justice: Facilitating or gatekeeping?

Kerstin Svensson

doi:10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1356

Authors

Kerstin Svensson School of Social Work, Lund University https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2503-0444

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1356

Keywords:

advocacy, access to justice, social work, democratic aspects, best practice

Abstract

Advocacy is one of the central means for supporting access to justice. The social work profession has advocacy as one of its main courses of action. This discusses the components in actions that are considered as good practice for facilitating access to justice in its democratic aspects. More explicitly social workers advocacy for promoting the worth and dignity of human beings in society. Four different ideals in social work are presented, self-help, treatment, philanthropy and bureaucracy. Thereafter, cases presented as best practice from European social workers are used for pointing out the central components described for good advocacy work. These are communication, inclusion and flexibility. Taken together, the aspects all go back to having respect for those in need of advocacy. In advocating for access to justice, it is important that the advocates are actively aware of their own role in a way that their efforts facilitate access to justice.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Metrics

Views 618
Downloads:
13(4)_Svensson_OSLS 390
XML_13(4)_Svensson_OSLS 55

Author Biography

Kerstin Svensson, School of Social Work, Lund University

School of Social Work, Lund University. Email address: kerstin.svensson@soch.lu.se

References

Adams, R., 1990. Self-help, social work and empowerment. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20670-4

Addams, J. (with M.M. Ockerbloom, ed.), 1910. Twenty years at Hull House [online]. University of Pennsylvania, Digital Library. Available from: https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/addams/hullhouse/hullhouse.html

Albiston, C.R., and Sandefur, R.L., 2013. Expanding the empirical study of access to justice. Wisconsin Law Review, 2013(1), 101–120.

Anderberg, P., et al., 2007. Preserving dignity in caring for older adults: A concept analysis. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 59(6), 635–643. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2007.04375.x

Arvidson, M., Johansson, H., and Scaramuzzino, R., 2018. Advocacy Compromised: How Financial, Organizational and Institutional Factors Shape Advocacy Strategies of Civil Society Organizations. Voluntas [online], 29, 844–856. Available from: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11266-017-9900-y DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-017-9900-y

Barman, E., 2017. The social bases of philanthropy. Annual Reviews of Sociology [online], 43, 271–290. Available from: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11266-017-9900-y DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-060116-053524

Botvin, G.J., and Griffin, K.W., 2004. Life skills training: Empirical findings and future directions. Journal of Primary Prevention [online], 2, 211–223. Available from: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/B:JOPP.0000042391.58573.5b DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JOPP.0000042391.58573.5b

DiMaggio, P.J., and Powell, W.W., 1983. The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48(2), 147–160. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2095101

European Association of Schools of Social Work (EASSW), 2012. The Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development Commitment to Action [online]. March. Maastricht: EASSW. Available from: https://www.eassw.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/globalagenda2012.pdf

Franklin, D.L., 1986. Mary Richmond and Jane Addams: From moral certainty to rational inquiry in social work practice. Social Service Review [online], 60(4), 504–525. Available from: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/644396 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/644396

Gregory, S., 2010. Cameras everywhere: Ubiquitous video documentation of human rights, new forms of video advocacy, and considerations of safety, security, dignity and consent. Journal of Human Rights Practice [online], 2(2), 191–207. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/huq002 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/huq002

Hasenfeld, Y., ed., 2010. Human services as complex organizations. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Helmersson, S., 2017. Mellan systerskap och behandling: Om förhandlingar inom ett förändrat stödfält för våldsutsatta kvinnor [online]. Lund Dissertations in Social Work uppl. Lund University. Available from: https://lucris.lub.lu.se/ws/portalfiles/portal/21513140/Sara_Helmersson_avhandling_fulltext.pdf

International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW), 2014. Global definition of social work [online]. Rheinfelden: IFSW. Available from: https://www.ifsw.org/what-is-social-work/global-definition-of-social-work/

International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW), 2016. Promoting the dignity and worth of peoples [online]. Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development: Second Report. Rheinfelden: IFSW. Available from: https://www.ifsw.org/product/books/global-agenda-for-social-work-and-social-development-2nd-report/

Leitch, J.A., 2016. Having a say: Democracy, access to justice and self-represented litigants [online]. PhD Dissertation. Law School of York University. Available from: http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/phd/23

Lindström, J., and Toikko, T., 2022. Survival stories as access to society: People with history of a crime as experts by experience. Nordic Journal of Criminology [online], 23(1), 3-22. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/2578983X.2021.1918435 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/2578983X.2021.1918435

Lipsky, M., 2010. Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public services. 30th anniversary expanded ed. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Mauss, M., 2002. The gift: The form and reason for exchange in archaic societies. London: Routledge.

Mowbray, C.T., et al., 2003. Fidelity criteria: Development, measurement and validation. American Journal of Evaluation [online], 24(3), 315–340. Available from: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/109821400302400303 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1098-2140(03)00057-2

Nobel Prize Outreach, 2021. Jane Addams: Facts [online]. Available from: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1931/addams/facts

Oxford English Dictionary [online], 2021. Available from: https://www.oed.com/

Piven, F.F., and Cloward, R.A., 1993. Regulating the poor: The functions of public welfare. Updated ed. New York: Vintage Books.

Platt, A.M., 2009. The child savers: The invention of delinquency. Expanded 40th anniversary ed. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Quataert, J.H., 2009. Advocating dignity: Human rights mobilizations in global politics. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812206128

Richmond, M.E., 1965. Social diagnosis [online]. New York: Free Press. Available from: https://www.historyofsocialwork.org/PDFs/1917, Richmond, Social Diagnosis OCR C.pdf (Originally published in 1917).

Social Welfare History Project, 2011. Mary Ellen Richmond (1861–1928) Social work pioneer, administrator, researcher and author [online]. Richmond: Virginia Commonwealth University, Social Welfare History Project. Available from: http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/social-work/richmond-mary/

Svensson, K., 2006. Socialt arbete med brottsoffer: sympati, empati och organisering. Stockholm: Carlsson.

Svensson, K., and Johnsson, E., 2008. Exploring Knowledge in Social Work through models. In: M. Michailidis, S. Fargion and R. Sanders, eds., Research Synergies in Social Professions. Rome: Carocci, 53-61.

Svensson, K., Johnsson, E., and Laanemets, L., 2021. Handlingsutrymme: utmaningar i socialt arbete. Stockholm: Natur & Kultur. (Originally published in 2008).