This week, we are sharing with you, our third summary from the BASW Cymru annual conference: A Tomorrow’s World. Our keynote speaker, Dr Caroline Hickman shared with her research exploring climate breakdown, its relationship to child safeguarding and how we as practitioners move to a position of understanding that climate crisis is a child’s rights crisis.
And the research is startling! So startling, that as social workers, we need to act now. Act to open our minds to the issues and act now in opening conversations with children and young people.
In her research - Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey (2021), Dr Caroline Hickman identifies:
- 8 out of 10 children and young people across the world, worry that climate change is threatening people and the planet. In the UK, this is 80% of our children.
- 75% of children and young people surveyed, think that the future is frightening and in the UK, this is 73%
- 56% think that humanity is doomed and in the UK, this is 51%
- 45% report negative impact on daily functioning (eating, concentrating, work, school, sleeping, spending time in nature, playing, having fun, relationships).
Some exceptionally startling data for us to consider.
Or in the words of Dr Caroline Hickman, climate change poses a significant risk to mental health that can be understood through stress-vulnerability models of health and because of exposure to chronic stress in childhood there is a long-lasting impact that increases the risk of developing mental health problems in adolescence and adulthood.
Through a carefully crafted presentation, Dr Hickman explored the relationship between climate change, relational trauma, neglect and abuse, child safeguarding and ultimately, the fundamental human and legal rights of children and young people. From her research, Dr Hickman argues that subjecting young people to climate anxiety and moral injury can be regarded as cruel, inhuman, degrading, or even torturous.
And that is why we need to act now, individually as social workers, collectively as a profession.
At a time of uncertainty for ourselves, our family and friends, our communities and the people we serve, we need to begin to develop a climate change lens where we view climate change and climate anxiety through personal, family, social, collective, national, international, political, planetary lens. And Dr Hickman outlines how we are well placed as social workers to address and support children and young people experiencing climate anxiety.
Hickman’s Models: Holding the Hope and the Psychosocial Climate Anxiety Scale is a helpful starting point for discussions with peers, teams and our managers. A starting point and mechanism to develop climate aware practice as social workers. Both models build upon our key skills as social workers (slides 28-30) where we are already skilled at supporting people to cope with liminal spaces & transitions (in between the old & the new worlds), we understand & can support people to navigate the process of change, we understand projection, defenses, wishful thinking, empathy & understanding – what can get in the way of this, we can explore our own defenses and fears, we understand that attachment issues (ambivalence, secure & disorganised are all played out in relation to climate & biodiversity crisis) and finally we understand denial can be a way for people to manage terror and try to control the uncontrollable
We know we continue to live in a world of continued uncertainty about whether we will take sufficient, sustained, effective action in time to reduce the spread of the more extreme impacts already appearing globally. Climate anxiety is a congruent & healthy response to the reality we are facing but can have for some children and young people, significant implications.
As social workers, we are positioned well to respond to individual concerns and to scope together a model of practice to support our children and young people.
Addition Resources:
Dr Hickman’s PowerPoint slides from the BASW Cymru Annual Conference can be found online.
Dr Hickman’s publications:
1.Hickman, C. (2020) We need to (find a way to) talk about ... Eco-anxiety
Special Edition Journal of Social Work Practice, 34:4, 411-424, DOI: 10.1080/02650533.2020.1844166
2.Climate anxiety in children and young people and their
beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey (2021) Hickman, C. Marks, L, Pihkala, P. Clayton, S. Lewandowski, E. Mayall, E. Wray, B. Mellor, C. Susteren, L.
Lancet Planetary Health
3.Hickman, C. (2024) Eco-Anxiety in Children & Young People – A Rational Response, Irreconcilable Despair, or Both? The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child. Jan p1-13.
Watch out for our practice workshops in the autumn of 2025 where we will be running a series of climate change and social work practice workshops where we will come together to explore how we can embed climate informed practice in our day-to-day practices.
Join us in this action by joining BASW / BASW Cymru today!
Or, join us in one of our many BASW Cymru events.
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