Social workers a key part of disaster recovery, says Dalhousie prof

Andrew Lam · CBC News

· Posted: May 02, 2025 8:49 PM EDT | Last Updated: 1 hr ago

Social workers tin play a ample relation successful supporting radical done trauma aft a disaster, says a Dalhousie University prof who was portion of a two-day league successful Halifax this week.

Jeff Karabanow, who teaches social enactment astatine Dal, was among the scholars from Canada and astir the satellite who gathered connected Thursday and Friday to sermon responses to clime alteration and disasters and to stock lessons learned.

"Disasters thin to person larger impacts connected much … susceptible populations," said Karabanow, who was part of a sheet treatment connected the relation of societal enactment successful clime catastrophe readying and supporting society's astir vulnerable.

"A batch of disasters … they hap astatine a definite constituent and past there's a batch of benignant of a betterment time."

The conference, hosted by Dalhousie, drew 2 twelve planetary scholars from the United States, United Kingdom, Pakistan, Japan and South Korea, according to league co-ordinator Haorui Wu.

"Disaster volition ne'er respect our geographic boundaries," said Wu, pointing to aerial contamination from wildfires arsenic an example, making it important for countries to collaborate and stock their experiences.

Wu is an subordinate prof astatine Dalhousie whose probe focuses connected however to assistance radical hole for, respond to and retrieve from disasters.

One taxable covered astatine the league was the inclusion of animals successful catastrophe planning. There is immoderate probe looking astatine however to hole pets for disasters, Wu said.

"But we bash not person … the catastrophe program for however to bash [that] for the agriculture animals."

Proactively supporting radical earlier disasters is thing Nova Scotia could be better at, said Karabanow, pointing to an illustration shared by a student from Japan during the conference.

"Social workers [in Japan] person embedded successful [a] preventative exemplary of lawsuit management, moving with susceptible populations successful areas wherever they're prone to catastrophe environmentally," Karabanow said.

He cited arsenic an example helping to physique a web of enactment astir a idiosyncratic with mobility issues and ensuring they person the means to beryllium transported to higher elevation successful a flood-prone area.

Wu said that Nova Scotia, with the province's acquisition dealing with wildfires and storms, besides has cognition it tin stock with others.

"We truly request … researchers to collaborate together, to woody with" clime alteration and disasters, helium said.