Social Work Practice with Climate-Displaced Populations: Ethical Frameworks and Intervention Strategies

Abstract

The accelerating pace of climate change has produced unprecedented patterns of human displacement, presenting profound challenges for social work practice with affected individuals, families, and communities. This paper examines ethical frameworks and intervention strategies for practising with climate-displaced populations, including those uprooted by sudden-onset disasters, slow-onset environmental degradation, and planned relocation from uninhabitable zones. Through a comprehensive literature review and theoretical synthesis, this study explores the intersection of social work values, climate justice, and the lived realities of environmental migrants. Key findings indicate that climate displacement produces distinctive forms of compounded loss — including cultural bereavement, ancestral-place severance, and protracted legal precarity — that exceed the scope of conventional disaster-response and refugee-resettlement models. The paper proposes a six-step ethical decision-making framework that integrates climate-justice principles with established social work ethics, and identifies critical intervention strategies including trauma-informed disaster response, community resilience building, cultural preservation work, mental health support for climate grief, and advocacy-oriented practice. Implications for social work education, policy reform, and future research are discussed, with particular emphasis on the urgent need for green social work competencies, decolonial practice frameworks, and structural engagement with the political-economic drivers of the climate crisis.