36 ● Anita Gibbs and Kate van Heugten
praxis, so that the exploitation of women is addressed, including the actions
of social workers themselves in terms of their sometimes-unwitting contri-
butions to the inequality and discrimination experienced by female clients
(and sometimes by female colleagues). The strength gained from working
collectively, with power sharing and consciousness raising, is crucial to effective
feminist practice and achieving a reduction in oppression (Payne 2005).
Using an anti-oppressive framework to assist Aleena and her family would
mean analyzing her circumstances through a radical lens. This lens would
acknowledge Aleena’s disadvantage through poverty, sexism, and possibly
racism, depending on her ethnicity. Human service workers would reflec-
tively explore their own biases and stereotypes, as well as consider how their
agency might perpetuate the oppression of families like Aleena’s. Action
might need to be taken on a number of levels. At the societal or structural
level, the social worker might join with a collective of concerned, like-
minded workers to petition officials and politicians about poverty-related
matters and try to implement better strategies to help people like Aleena
escape the poverty trap. At the organizational level, a worker would use an
empowerment orientation to challenge sexist, racist, or other discriminatory
policies and practices. He or she might seek to introduce new policies focused
on equal opportunity and equal access for a diverse staff and client population.
At the individual level, depending on Aleena’s goals, the worker would
support Aleena to help her gain a range of welfare benefit payments and
educational or employment opportunities and would find ways of supporting
Aleena to meet her needs and those of her children. If Aleena expressed dis-
criminatory views toward others of, for example, a different ethnicity, then
a worker using an anti-oppressive framework might challenge Aleena’s own
stereotypes and help her develop new language and attitudes toward diverse
populations.
Rights-Based FrameworksA human rights focus aims to ensure that all citizens are granted a basic
set of rights that support their well-being (Connolly 2013). International
federations of social work and national associations of social workers adhere
to a human rights framework, as well as codes of ethics and values (Connolly
2013). Human rights movements have shaped social work’s commitment to
rights for particular groups: service users, people with disabilities and mental
health issues, children, and indigenous groups. Human rights can be consid-
ered both universal and specific to particular groups, as well as constructed
and therefore not static (Ife 2012). Examples of widely accepted human
rights (Banks 2006) include