Are we listening? Insights from Australian social workers navigating discourse and practice tensions in refugee mental health

Abstract

This article explores social work practitioners’ experiences when working with Syrian and other refugees during resettlement using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) within a practitioner-researcher, action-oriented methodology and a deconstructive theoretical framework. This study gathered firsthand practice narratives and insights from seven social workers engaged in high-complexity-needs case management and therapeutic approaches with refugees in mental health service delivery, investigating the challenges and dominant systemic discourses that social work practitioners engage with when working cross-culturally. A finding from this study emphasised the importance of practitioners adopting a collectivist approach to understanding how refugees experience the resettlement process. The findings elaborate on the complexities social work practitioners face when working with refugees, deepening socially and culturally informed insights. This study provides an important and timely opportunity for practitioners and policymakers to better understand the challenges of navigating refugee mental health services. By considering the social worker participants’ experiences, we can enhance practices and policies to better meet the needs of refugees and promote responsive, critically informed practices.

Introduction

This article explores the perspectives of seven social workers, highlighting their experiences in high-complexity-needs case management and therapeutic approaches. Part of a broader study that privileges the voices of Syrian and other refugees, this article focuses on the specific challenges and tensions that social workers confront within neoliberal organisational environments when working cross-culturally.

Refugee clients often encounter systemic and social challenges during the resettlement process, including housing difficulties, limited access to education and employment opportunities, and funding constraints. Meanwhile, a lack of resources essential to implementing trauma-informed care principles in contemporary social work presents practitioners with complex challenges in providing holistic care and effective service delivery (Fenning, 2021; Robinson, 2014; Whitaker et al., 2024). Together, these factors create a complex landscape, placing twenty-first-century social work practices with refugees at a critical crossroads.

Despite the growing cultural and linguistic diversity of the Australian population, there remains no dedicated national multicultural mental health policy addressing the specific needs of groups such as refugee and other migrant communities. At the same time, recent Australian mental health reforms have increasingly recognised lived experience as a legitimate and valuable form of expertise in mental health policy development and service delivery (Productivity Commission, 2025); however, this recognition has progressed gradually and has not yet been systematically embedded across migrant and refugee communities. The national Embrace Multicultural Mental Health initiative provides an important example of progress in this area, with its evaluation indicating that lived-experience participation is meaningful and valued within governance processes, yet constrained by limited scope, feedback mechanisms, and translation into broader system-level change (Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, 2024). Together, these gaps highlight the need for more deliberate and sustained approaches to embedding migrant and refugee voices through co-design, lived-experience leadership, and community participation. Such inclusion is essential to support mental health systems that are culturally responsive, equitable, and grounded in the lived realities, strengths, and priorities of refugee and migrant communities.

The ongoing complexity of social work involving Syrian and other refugees has raised significant concerns, especially as global events influence the visibility of humanitarian and cultural displacement crises affecting specific communities (Qummouh et al., 2025). In Australia, Syria was a major focus in the media as recently as 2022, but this has been overshadowed by catastrophic events in Ukraine, Sudan, Nigeria, and the Israel-Palestine conflict. However, the Syrian civil war continues into its 14th year, and the political upheaval that resulted in the overthrow of the Assad government in 2024 (Human Rights Foundation, 2024) shows that Syrians remain one of the largest groups of displaced refugees worldwide. This situation is exacerbated by the multiple displacements Syrian refugees have already endured, along with 7.2 million internally displaced persons within Syria (World Vision).

Since the Syrian civil war in 2011, the humanitarian and displacement situation for the Syrian people has worsened significantly, with “16.7 million people now in need of humanitarian assistance and protection” (UNHCR Global, 2024), the highest number since the conflict began. It is essential to include a brief overview of Australia’s refugee policies for context. In 1947, Australia entered into an agreement with the International Refugee Organisation to “select and admit displaced persons from camps in Europe” (Parliament of Australia, 2020. web page). Since then, 1 million refugees and displaced persons have settled in Australia (Refugee Council of Australia, 2025). As of June 2023, 635,119 are refugees, with 34,742 in the Humanitarian Stream (Refugee Council of Australia, 2024a). The Australian government has set an annual humanitarian intake of 20,000 places for 2024–2025, aimed at supporting individuals and families fleeing difficult circumstances or requiring resettlement assistance within Australia (Refugee Council of Australia, 2025).

Australia’s Refugee and Humanitarian Program is administered by the Department of Home Affairs and operates through two pathways: offshore and onshore protection (Department of Home Affairs, 2024). The offshore program provides resettlement for refugees and others in humanitarian need outside Australia, primarily those referred by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), with priority given to particularly vulnerable groups (e.g. ethnic minority groups, LGBTQI + individuals). The onshore program offers protection to people deemed to have arrived lawfully in Australia and engage Australia’s international protection obligations, subject to health, character and security requirements. Individuals who enter Australia without authorisation, often by boat, are excluded from accessing the onshore protection system, a policy setting that has been the subject of ongoing public, legal, and academic debate in Australia, and forms part of the government’s broader framework for managing irregular maritime arrivals within their humanitarian program. Since World War II, Australia has resettled more than 950,000 refugees and people in humanitarian need, a number equivalent to around 3–4% of the current national population, thus illustrating a sustained commitment to humanitarian resettlement over time (Department of Home Affairs, 2024).

Emerging literature highlights the significance of social work with refugees and the importance of trauma-informed practice. According to Tarshish et al. (2024), trauma-informed practice is defined as “a holistic framework used across systems and professions to understand, recognise, and respond to the pervasive effects of trauma” (p. 3). However, the specific psychosocial and cultural factors influencing resettlement, as well as the impacts of trauma—particularly post-traumatic stress—have not been adequately explored in the context of Syrian refugee experiences (Fenning, 2021; Hosny et al., 2024; Marlowe, 2018). Scoping reviews on trauma-informed care and research involving refugee populations, such as Hosny et al. (2024), Leotti and Wahab (2025), and O’Brien and Charura (2023), agree that many other refugee ethnic groups also remain under-studied. This is supported by Potocky (2023), who states, “the world today has the highest number of refugees in history… Due to the stressors and traumas of forced migration, resettled refugees experience disproportionate rates of physical and mental health difficulties” (p. 232).

Methodology

This study employed a qualitative Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) led by a practitioner-researcher, with an action-oriented methodology (Fawcett and Pockett, 2015). An advantage of the IPA approach is “the bonding relationship that the approach allows for the researchers to develop with their research participants, enabling the interviewees (research participants) to express themselves and their lived experience stories the way they see fit without any distortion and/or prosecution” (Alase, 2017: p. 9). These relationships were a fundamental principle underlying the method and ethics of this study.

Additionally, the IPA-oriented methodology enabled the first author to integrate her experiences as a mental health social work practitioner and psychotherapist, along with cultural insights from her Lebanese, Armenian, and Greek backgrounds, each shaped by distinct histories of trauma, into the overall study. This integration sensitised her to the responses of the social work participants. This interpersonal focus is particularly significant, given that constructions of refugee mental health often overlook this epistemological inquiry, grouping clients’ voices into a collective, over-generalised understanding. An IPA framework facilitates an examination of participants’ perspectives, focusing on their lived-experience narratives (Smith et al., 2021). It supports exploration of how social work practices can shape understanding of resettlement, identify gaps, unpack practice constructs, and examine resilience factors in trauma settings, thereby informing practice in this field (Creswell and Miller, 2010).

As Fawcett and Pockett (2015) note, “qualitative research emanates from a variety of intellectual positions and cannot be regarded as a unified set of techniques or philosophies” (pg. 55). Thus, employing IPA within a relational research context emphasises the significance of practitioners’ narratives in addressing the impacts of resettlement in refugee-trauma environments. This aligns with the epistemological stance of interpretative phenomenology, which seeks to “understand a person’s relatedness to the world through the meanings they make” (Larkin and Thompson, 2011: p.102).

The strength of this orientation also lies in prioritising the context’s strategic significance and interrogating the understandings of the social world (Fawcett and Pockett, 2015). The interpretive aspect of IPA allows a comprehensive understanding of practitioners’ experiences by including both psychological and social factors (Ide and Beddoe, 2024). The study challenges traditional epistemological methods by collecting narratives about professional practice, highlighting the tensions between systemic expectations, professional discourses, and cultural differences in providing decolonised trauma-focused social work to Syrian and other refugees. Moreover, it is essential to focus on refugee clients at the centre of practice while being aware of cultural differences and personal socio-political issues that may not be explicitly addressed in social work. As Jones et al. (2025) state, “internationally within social work, there has been a call for decolonisation within practice [that] emphasises integrating Indigenous knowledge, challenging White dominance, reconstructing spaces, promoting critical reflection, and understanding socio-political contexts” (p. 1033).

The study involved a two-stage process of gathering detailed practitioner accounts and analysing them through a deconstructive lens. Bland et al. (2021) emphasise the importance of a deconstructive approach in mediating between critical and clinical social work ideas, addressing tensions between personal and professional worldviews. This framework enabled the researchers to listen to and learn from the lived experiences of the social work participants, improving understanding of the complexities in refugee mental health practice.

Participants and data collection

Seven semi-structured interviews with social work practitioners working with Syrian and other refugees were conducted. Three of the participants work in high-complex-needs case management settings, and four work in therapeutic settings. The research participants were recruited from refugee-specific organisations in Sydney, Australia, through purposive sampling to reflect a variety of experiences while also highlighting commonalities. Among the seven participants, three were born in Australia and had a mix of English, Scottish, Irish, French, and German ancestry. One participant is from Iraq, has Turkman heritage, and was the only participant who spoke Arabic in her practice, while another is from Bangladesh. The last two participants are from India, and one is a Tibetan refugee from India. Of these four non-Australian-born participants, two had received their social work education and training in their home countries and have since achieved recognition in Australia through the Australian Association of Social Workers. The other two participants received their social work training and education in Australia as International students.

The participants’ cultural backgrounds played a crucial role in shaping their practice of social work. Cultural backgrounds can reinforce or challenge Western epistemologies and ontological assumptions in practitioners’ work. For instance, the Australian-born social work participants who identified with a predominantly white background had both incorporated aspects of their cultural heritage into their understanding and practice and had critiqued aspects of that heritage. As a result, their experiences and beliefs about culture influence their approach to social work.

Data analysis

The IPA method of data analysis was used to thoroughly investigate data collected from semi-structured interviews, with the aim of understanding how participants interpreted their experiences (Larkin and Thompson, 2011). Transcripts of the interviews were then analysed by the first author using the IPA data analysis framework (Charlick, McKellar, Fielder and Pincombe, 2015). The diagram below outlines the seven steps (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

IPA Data Analysis Framework.

This seven-step IPA data analysis process aimed to help the first author engage with the participants’ world by carefully and concisely reviewing the data collected during the analysis stage. The process involved reading and rereading the semi-structured interview to identify themes and interpret the data. Smith et al. (2009) argued that the “IPA research approach has the ability to explore, in a deep way, the ‘lived experiences’ of research participants and help to understand the phenomenological significance of this experience and how it impacts the participant” (Alase, 2017: p. 17).

In IPA data analysis, the goal is to thoroughly review all collected information to ensure that the research meets the minimum standards needed to generate credible and transferable results for an IPA study (Alase, 2017: p. 17). The themes that emerged from multiple in-depth analyses of the full transcriptions in response to the interview questions (Appendix 1) reflect a rich tapestry of insights. The first author’s experiences as a mental health social work practitioner played a vital role in enabling her to reflect on the individual nuances of participants’ lived experiences. This personal background helped her develop a deeper understanding of the complexities of social work practice. Her focus on reflexivity and critical self-awareness ensured that she presented participants’ narratives authentically, allowing their unique voices to come through without overshadowing them with her own experiences. In this process, the first author followed the principles outlined by Braun and Clarke (2023), who state that themes are “generated, created or constructed; they are not identified, found or discovered, and they definitely don’t just ‘emerge’” (p. 3). By embracing this understanding, the first author enriched the analysis and contributed to a more nuanced and comprehensive exploration of the participants’ experiences.

As a result, the findings reflect the individual nuances of the participants’ lived experiences, respect what matters to them, and are transferable because they capture commonalities across their experiences.

Ethical considerations

The key ethical consideration for this research has been to ensure that the fundamental principle of human rights—namely, “the dignity, safety, and wellbeing of participants”—was upheld at all times (Thompson and Chambers, 2011: p. 25). This study involves many areas where personal and professional vulnerability might be increased; therefore, ethical considerations regarding emotional and physical safety and trust were crucial. The de-identification of all seven participants, whose identities are known only to the first author, has been a necessary but insufficient condition given the ethical complexities requiring ongoing reflexive consideration throughout the conduct of this research. The following ethical guidelines used in this research have been adapted from Thompson and Chambers (2011) and align with the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) code of responsible research conduct, which aims to anticipate and address potential risks and issues (AASW 2020).

An important ethical consideration in this research is the first author’s dual role as both a researcher and a practitioner. Supervision in both clinical social work and research was maintained throughout data collection. This approach helped prevent the development of therapeutic expectations during interviews and facilitated the identification and management of new and ongoing ethical issues. It was a crucial strategy for strengthening researcher reflexivity, anticipating ethical concerns, and reducing risks. Ethical considerations during recruitment focused on ensuring transparency with participants. Achieving this required securing informed consent, which includes details about the research’s aims and objectives, the use of participants’ accounts of lived experience to develop and improve services, and awareness of the first author’s dual role to prevent therapeutic expectations. During data collection, it was vital to empower participants to withdraw from the interview at any time without providing a reason (Thompson and Chambers, 2011). Ethical issues in this phase also encompass confidentiality and transparency regarding data collection methods and privacy measures, which were communicated upfront. All disclosures were de-identified and used solely for the study’s purpose. The dissemination of data was explained, with particular attention to the researchers’ dual roles.

Other ethical considerations include that social work participants may see the interviews as similar to scrutinising or reporting on their practice, which could affect their engagement. Transparency about the study’s purpose, creating a safe space for reflection, maintaining confidentiality, and avoiding disclosures that breach ethical standards were therefore vital. Sharing research aims at the beginning helped promote transparency (Thompson and Chambers, 2011). Additionally, practitioners might interpret the interview as supervision, with potential disclosures of vicarious trauma (Graham et al., 2007). If necessary, practitioners could be referred to their usual clinical supervision or support services. During data analysis, disclosures are protected by de-identification and validation against participants’ narratives. Maintaining ethical mindfulness throughout analysis, particularly when employing the seven steps of IPA, helps prevent exploitation and misrepresentation of participants (Thompson and Chambers, 2011).

Western Sydney University Human Research Ethics Committee (H15267) granted ethics approval for this study.

Results

Two main themes were derived, showing how social work practitioners’ efforts in refugee trauma and resettlement are often constrained by contexts shaped by neoliberalism. The first theme highlighted a tension between the ideals of social justice held by social workers and the practical realities they and their clients face. It specifically highlighted the difficulties of balancing conflicting demands when working with refugee clients amid neoliberal discourses, including systemic and funding constraints, policy issues, and challenges posed by unsustainable caseloads. These factors have significant implications for service delivery. The second theme focuses on intersectionality within social work practice culture, examining how Western social work paradigms interact with various interconnected factors that influence service frameworks, practitioners’ privilege in resource access, and the vital roles of trust and power within agencies. The study also identified challenges related to working within individualising and, at times, pathologising therapeutic paradigms, managing power dynamics and unconscious assumptions, and balancing individual needs with collective responsibility and cultural sensitivity. Finally, the exploration of both themes encourages reflective practice that critically examines these influences and considers practitioners’ reflexivity when providing services to refugee clients, especially within the context of Western discourses and social work practices. From the participants’ narratives, the analysis uncovers several key intersections among systemic structural issues, cultural understandings, and the realities of social work practice across the two themes, including practitioner burnout in the context of trauma care, which is partially attributed to the neoliberal tendency to individualise responsibility, placing undue pressure on practitioners.

The challenge of conflicting demands

The key subthemes that derived from the data highlighted a tension in the social work participants’ narratives between their commitment to social justice in practice, the encroachment of neoliberal approaches, and the practical realities of social work. Specific challenges in balancing conflicting demands when working with refugee clients were foregrounded in all the interviews. These challenges coexist alongside ongoing issues, including systemic constraints, limited resources, policy barriers, funding shortages, and the difficulties associated with unsustainable caseloads. The social work participants showed a reflexive awareness of how unconscious biases shape not just individual attitudes but the systems and services these social workers operate within.

As summarised by SWP6, the following factors are brought into consideration:

‘There’s this idea or attunement toward people’s culture as the main focus, there are cultural differences, and I still think we’re not doing a good job in service delivery around making that explicit… for instance, how services work or the underpinning ideologies of those services… and giving people an opportunity to reflect and engage with….. Because that’s where that sort of white-centred dominance [comes in], it’s just unconscious'.

Adding:

‘The services are not entirely responsive to working effectively with some of the cohorts we’re working with… some of those frameworks or paradigms don’t always support that sort of practice.'

The interviews told stories of professional practice, examining the tensions between systemic expectations, professional discourses, and cultural differences within the context of practitioners’ experiences providing trauma-informed, high-complexity case management and counselling to Syrian and other refugees. Furthermore, recognising systemic inequities prompts questions about how Western discourses sometimes fail to account for the intersection of race, class, and migration status in the delivery of social services. These intersectional and systemic challenges revealed discursive and systemic tensions that can place refugee clients at greater risk or allow them to fall through the cracks within settlement organisations’ policies and limitations. This suggests systemic failures and the need for service providers to actively challenge the discourse that positions refugees as burdens rather than as individuals with unique stories and strengths. The narratives of social worker participants were filled with these constructs, highlighting systemic inequities, service delivery limitations caused by policies or funding, and discrimination within the very system intended to support refugee resettlement. These challenges are also evident in refugee clients’ efforts to navigate the resettlement process while contending with multiple system gaps and meeting a range of needs.

Summed up by SWP2, a high complex needs case manager;

‘I go to my manager; this is what my client is facing. Can we do this? ‘No, this is not what it's funded for. ‘ Okay, it’s not what it is funded for. But what do we do if the client’s need is still not met? These are everyday challenges we face… if you’re talking about a client coming from a trauma background. It’s not helping that person’s mental health…. It’s even further putting [the client] at risk.'

Adding:

‘We work under certain funding or within certain systems. It sort of restricts us from making a lot of movement… When working as an employee in an organisation, we have these policies that we need to follow, which may not always match the [refugee] needs. And I think that the biggest challenge is always finding these gaps, especially with our refugee clients, that a lot of the laws, policies, and support that we have in Australia are not yet necessarily made to meet the needs of refugee people.'

The accounts of the therapeutic social work participants highlighted the complex challenges and limitations involved in addressing their clients’ emotional trauma during sessions. They offered compelling examples, such as housing and employment issues, which meant in-depth counselling could commence only after these urgent concerns were addressed. These concerns take precedence over therapeutic interventions, which are typically seen as essential to long-term support, revealing a significant gap between theoretical frameworks and the realities of social work practice that extends beyond immediate needs. Put simply, the circumstances of refugee resettlement demand a more nuanced approach, forcing therapeutic social work practitioners to navigate the intricate interplay between crisis management and therapeutic care. It is well known that a key challenge for refugees is first and foremost to establish safety, and that trauma cannot be processed until safety is established (Similä et al., 2026).

As SWP4 reflected:

‘The time when they’re referred is really important because right at the beginning, a lot of that stuff is not sorted out. It’s like, what comes first in the hierarchy of needs? All of that stuff is way more important. We work very closely with… other service providers and settlement programs; there’s a lot of communication back and forth. But there are these expectations as well when you arrive in the country, you expect everything is going to be so much better now, and it’s quite a big slap to the face when things are really difficult here, financially, housing…. So yes, it all comes into the room, and we sort of try to contain it… but the timing is important.'

The frustrations expressed by practitioners, as seen in quotes from SWP6, SWP2, and SWP4, highlight how systemic constraints limit their ability to provide effective support. This underscores the broader social work debate criticising the bureaucratic focus of service delivery in Western contexts and the relational, empathetic approach often sacrificed for procedural efficiency (Eiroa-Orosa and MacIntyre, 2023).

Social work practices and a culturally responsive framework

The analysis of the data recognised that different systemic perspectives can depict refugees in various ways—either as victims of trauma or through cultural stereotypes and biases. They may be constructed as psychologically resilient individuals or as people defined solely by their refugee experience. The analysis identified tensions arising from preconceived notions embedded in policies that adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to resettlement, often neglecting the cultural, geographical, and historical differences among refugees.

Systems and discourses

The participants’ narratives revealed strong connections and difficulties between systemic expectations, professional discourses, and cultural differences. From a systemic view, these stories emphasised the need to address inequalities, improve service delivery within existing policies and funding limits, and challenge discrimination in refugee resettlement. Moreover, the complexity of tailoring interventions to manage both trauma and unique sociocultural conflicts for each client highlights discourses that reinforce structural and systemic barriers in housing access, service availability, and employment opportunities. As SWP3 narrates:

‘clients come in with quite a lot of needs, whether it is with Centrelink or Medicare, whether it’s with the education system or with employment… Now, these are the systems that we deal with. But then, unfortunately…. One size does not fit everyone, and so most of our refugees always sit outside of the one size [fits all]. So it’s not easy for them to navigate at all because there’s complexity on every angle……… helping the clients to realise that, Yes, the system is there to cater to your need, but it doesn’t actually meet your need in a lot of ways because you sit outside of the fitting zone'.

Discrimination

When asked about their experiences or thoughts on the systemic challenges they face as practitioners and the impact on clients, nearly all participants discussed discrimination based on stereotypes. The study highlighted challenges in working within therapeutic frameworks, managing power dynamics and unconscious biases, and emphasised the importance of balancing individual needs with collective responsibility and cultural awareness. This was reflected in the narratives, which suggest from a systemic perspective the additional impacts of trauma caused by racism in a new society, manifest as discrimination and stereotyping that refugees often encounter.

SWP6 narrates:

‘So, I think it’s two things, the interpersonal realities of business and services and their stretched and limited resources and then also this thing about discrimination, racist ideologies or ideas of particular groups of people. And that there is a very heavy-handed reality of that toward the Arabic-speaking world in particular.’

SWP7 responded this way with the idea that a:

‘lack of access to resources and inequitable systems that deny people opportunities to care for each other and themselves [to], achieve their potential… Trying to work within the existing systems and challenge existing systems, but also trying not to be part of the problem.’

Privilege

The social work practitioners discussed professional and cultural privilege. Specifically, two of the seven participants talked about how they used their white privilege to support refugee clients within the system. This was a noteworthy finding, especially considering that three of the seven participants are Australian-born practitioners. They emphasised the need to move beyond Western views dominated by neoliberal ideas and instead focus on intersectionality. Recognising and utilising their white privilege could help them better support their clients and navigate the system more effectively.

SWP6 narrates:

‘Being strategic and thoughtful and using the language that I’ve acquired through my education, and also my white privilege that to actually forward other, the people I am working with, in terms of their objectives, not mine.’

Further adding:

‘Having a sort of insight into navigating that system because… ideally, it is also important around the empowerment of the client themselves, but sometimes there is this level of racism and discrimination that people face…. And so, what can I do in that sort of intermediary space? Also [relying on] what knowledge I have of the system and the way the system works to advocate [for clients].’

SWP5 reflected cultural privilege in this way:

‘I feel really grateful that I’m doing this job…. You know my ability, my skill, and I feel I get more compassionate… especially working with trauma, refugees… Yes, we all have our own experiences. I myself have my own experience, but also when I hear their [refugees] own experience, I feel really blessed to be able to support them in their journey.’

Arab cultural knowledge systems

However, SWP1’s reflection on cultural privilege presents a very different experience from that of SWP5, who speaks Arabic and (contrary to simplistic assumptions about the benefits of cultural similarity with clients) views speaking the language as, in part, a hindrance to delivering effective services due to unrealistic client expectations. This nuanced understanding of integrating Arab cultural knowledge highlights alternative approaches to supporting refugees but also poses challenges for culturally competent social workers. A key concept in Arab culture is ‘wastah’, which refers to having connections in high places that help get things done more quickly. This construct illustrates the complexity of cultural understanding necessary for effective practice:

‘So because I speak the language, they will expect more…they will have high expectations… [for example] when I encourage them to work and to [find] employment…. Or when applying for public housing…. they think I can do things; I can do magic… So I assist them with the forms [and] they will start, ‘Ohh SWP1, do something, talk to someone to push our application’ [wastah]. I always tell them, ‘I go with you to public housing and queue with you [to submit applications], which means I don’t know anyone’. They refuse to believe this… and so when I go to visit them for our last interview, they will tell me, ‘Oh SWP1, you didn’t do the housing for us, we didn’t get the government house’…. so this [is the] high expectations they have.’

Discussion

This study explored how social work practitioners’ interventions in refugee resettlement are influenced and challenged by the limits of Western, neoliberal forms of knowledge and practice. The narratives revealed systemic complexities and challenges faced in two areas of social work practice, namely case management and therapeutic support, as practitioners navigated their roles when working with refugees. What was particularly clear was the urgent need to prioritise and sustain refugee clients through a social justice lens and advocacy (Hosny et al., 2024; Lau and Rodgers, 2021; Smajlovic and Murphy, 2020). However, the participants also reported limitations and difficulties, with their stories filled with complex discursive practices around how social work practitioners have come to understand, frame, and approach their work with Syrian and other refugees in neoliberal contexts (Im and Rodriguez, 2020; Wylie et al., 2018). This process both reinforced and challenged Western perspectives on trauma-focused work, highlighting the systemic complexities affecting not just service users but also the identities of social workers.

Intersectionality in social work practice

Each narrative explored various factors, including cultural context, gender, historical trauma, and socio-political-economic status. Additionally, the narratives examined how the enculturation of refugees resettling in Australia is either positively or negatively affected by the professional approach and acculturation of the practitioners working with them. It highlighted how these factors intersect and influence clients’ resettlement processes.

The study presents several important findings. One of these was participants’ awareness of discursive practices that reveal power dynamics among social work practitioners, their refugee clients, and the larger refugee services established to support resettlement. Interestingly, the social work practitioners’ narratives were fraught with frustration, as they discussed practical limitations and challenges amid undercurrents of entrenched power structures. This mirrored their clients’ frustrations and restricted a deeper exploration in the interviews of the role of culture in trauma, mental health, recovery, and settlement within the Australian context. This is somewhat surprising, given that understanding each refugee’s unique experience—including significant trauma and other complex factors influencing their resettlement journey—requires integrating trauma-informed principles through an intersectional lens (Alachkar, 2023; Blackmore et al., 2020; Curry et al., 2018).

Identity: Individual versus collective constructs

The study highlighted the complexities and tensions in social work practice concerning refugee resettlement, particularly in translating trauma-informed care from individual to collective contexts. It raised more questions than answers, underscoring the importance of reflectivity in maintaining practice within marginalised communities. The participants identified a need for a more harmonised and unified service delivery model that incorporates the psycho, socio-political, and cultural perspectives of refugees’ lived experiences, recognising the impacts of these experiences on displacement and how they shape their resettlement identities once safety is achieved. In practice, it is about engaging refugees on their journey towards agency, empowerment, and involvement in policymaking. As Farahani et al. (2021) and Al-Muhannadi and Buheji (2024) argue, policies and interventions should reflect refugees’ strengths, recognising that survival depends on community-oriented environments rather than individualistic settings.

The findings also highlight the tensions social workers navigate between, when working within individualistic approaches that are not culturally responsive to collectivist cultures. This intersectionality results in narratives that challenge colonised ideologies and question taken-for-granted assumptions about what ‘best practice’ might look like. This finding aligns with emerging literature arguing that individualistic approaches limit the effectiveness of mental health clinical work, emphasising the importance of adopting a collectivist approach, where family and community connections are crucial to mental health recovery and resettlement support (Due et al., 2024; Magan et al., 2023; Reynolds, 2024). Farahani et al. (2021) and Al-Muhannadi and Buheji (2024) contend that refugees thrive in community-oriented environments rather than individualistic settings, and that policies and interventions should reflect this.

The participants engaged in critical reflexivity regarding their practice frameworks and the systems in which they operate. They were aware of the contradiction of supporting refugee clients in advocating for themselves, while knowing that advocating ‘for’ them might carry more influence within systems of power that privilege professionals’ perspectives over clients’ lived experiences. The three participants from Western cultural backgrounds considered how their clients’ perceptions of privilege influence both the therapeutic relationship and their settlement experiences, particularly in areas such as education and employment. These narratives reveal how these practitioners intentionally mobilise their White privilege alongside professional privilege to support clients and move away from Western-centric perspectives and discursive practices. Using White privilege to mitigate settlement challenges in a predominantly white world can be effective, but ontologically, it may privilege White Western voices while refugees’ subjective, existential experiences continue to be marginalised (Dykstra-Devette, 2018; Iannacone, 2024). As Marlowe (2018) emphasises, the focus remains on keeping refugee clients’ voices central to practice. This approach helps prevent the dominance of resettlement rhetoric shaped by a predominantly white perspective. Practitioners must remain mindful not to ‘contribute to what several critical authors have cautioned as cultural imperialism or psychological colonisation’ (Marlowe, 2018: xii).

The four social work practitioners from diverse cultural backgrounds faced increased professional challenges when delivering services that did not align with the Western model of social work. They reflected on how their ambiguous positioning—between professional privilege and personal cultural experience—both heightened their awareness of the tensions between collective and individualistic discourses and made them vulnerable to expectations they could not always meet. The study revealed that client expectations for service delivery might be higher when the practitioner was culturally diverse; however, these practitioners encountered systemic limitations beyond their control. While they may have privileges as members of the social work profession, they also cannot leverage White privilege in the manner reported by the White Western social work practitioners. Due to this tension between expectations and constraints, reports of burnout were significantly higher among the four practitioners involved in the study compared to their Western colleagues. Nonetheless, the study’s small sample size limits its generalisability, underscoring the need for further research in this area.

Practice discourse

Our findings are consistent with other studies that have argued that practice discourse related to trauma-informed treatment frameworks, combined with culturally effective approaches, culminates in critical social work practice in contested humanitarian settings (Robinson, 2014; O'Donoghue and Munford, 2019; Tarshish et al., 2024). The discourse surrounding social work practitioners’ interventions is significantly shaped and often challenged by Western epistemologies of ‘evidence-based best practice. This remains a challenging area within the field. Hosny et al. (2024) argue,

‘A growing body of research argues that Western biomedical frameworks for conceptualising, diagnosing and treating trauma may not be suitable for non-Western and trauma caused by political violence inflicted on entire populations over time. The cultural and political contexts of trauma are increasingly recognised as key to understanding trauma-related distress.’ (p.1).

Not ‘one size fits all’

Each wave of refugee settlement brings new sociocultural understandings, insights, knowledge, and psychological perspectives. This underscores the importance of recognising and addressing the specific areas of practice that emerge from these changes. Surprisingly, no major differences were found in the approach to working with refugees of the non-Western-educated social work practitioners involved in this research. All participants acknowledged that entrenched systemic barriers and discourses heightened their frustrations as well as those of their refugee clients and hindered a deeper exploration of the role of culture in trauma, mental health, recovery, resilience, and settlement in an Australian context. This finding aligns with various other studies (Allan, 2015; Fenning, 2021; Marlowe, 2018) which also suggest that neither global social work practices nor the trauma model sufficiently address the complex interactions of individual, political, and social forces shaping the refugee resettlement experience, highlighting that “there is no effective ‘one size fits all’ approach to resettlement” (Qummouh and Linnell, 2023: p. 4).

Furthermore, the study stressed the importance of practitioners remaining aware of their unconscious assumptions, as these may inadvertently influence the dignity and lived experiences of the refugees they work with. The results reinforce the idea that recognising and valuing each refugee’s unique experiences, stories, and backgrounds is key to supporting their path to healing. As Wylie et al. (2018) and Marlowe (2018) argue, recognising these individual differences allows for a more nuanced and effective approach to trauma, mental health, and resettlement, rather than relying on a generic framework.

Conclusion

This article explored the findings from social work participants on the complex interplay between individualistic and collective cultural approaches, tensions between the ethical demands of social justice against the backdrop of a market-driven system, and the limits of social workers’ experience within an environment fraught with systemic failures that pressure them to work as processors of people rather than practitioners of social justice.

Notably, this study contributes to the expanding body of research demonstrating that each wave of refugee settlement provides new knowledge and insights. It also highlights areas within social work practice and advocacy that need attention and action. As Ife (2019) observed, ‘Social workers draw on their insights and practical experience in ways that will contribute to creating a better world… and to dare to dream’ (O'Donoghue and Munford, 2019: p.9).

These findings highlight the complexities and challenges faced by social work practitioners when working with refugees. They offer valuable insights into understanding refugees’ lived experiences from psycho-social, political, and cultural perspectives. Additionally, they emphasise the impact of displacement and how these experiences influence the resettlement process once safety is achieved. While recognising the many challenges ahead, it is crucial to focus on how collaboration and collective effort can lead to effective solutions and ensure refugees are involved in policymaking that reflects their collective realities and insights.