Understanding Indigenous Communities’ Approach Towards Holistic Well-Being

Eleanor Hogan: Hi my name is Eleanor Hogan.

Tina Odu: And I'm Tina Odu.

Tina Odu: Were social work apprentices pursuing a bachelor's degree in social work in the United Kingdom?

Eleanor Hogan: Welcome to the Decolonised and social work Field Education podcast.

Tina Odu: The welfare of the child is paramount.

Tina Odu: This is the first line of the Children Act 1989, which revolutionalized child safeguarding practises.

Tina Odu: England, we have come to learn about how this piece of legislation is used in social practise.

Eleanor Hogan: The well-being principle is a key concept in the Care Act of 2014, which places a duty on the local authority to promote an individual's well-being, and Section 1, subsection 2 provides a well-being checklist.

Eleanor Hogan: Which includes personal dignity, protection from abuse and neglect, physical mental health and emotional well-being, and so on.

Tina Odu: I know from placements that it's not always usually straightforward to assess individuals well-being based on this checklist or eligibility criteria.

Tina Odu: As we would call it in social work practise. Moreover, some individuals have to sit on a waiting list for months, sometimes so well-being can mean different things across different contexts globally. But what do we really mean by holistic well-being and who defines this?

Tina Odu: Is there a framework that can help us as students begin to understand the diverse needs of individuals and communities across the world?

Eleanor Hogan: Yeah. So we've used the words welfare and well-being interchangeably.

Eleanor Hogan: And I just did a quick Google search just to clarify the difference between these and I saw an article on Community Care Inform website which basically says that there is no difference between welfare, welfare and well-being as it is used in social work and 20/20/12 case law rule and when as far to use the word interest.

Eleanor Hogan: As synonymous with well-being and welfare, but I.

Tina Odu: And how can we begin to understand other cultures that might seem alternative to UK practitioners and introduce these approaches into our practise? How can we understand well-being in terms of connectedness? It's not just human beings, but also considering.

Tina Odu: Other aspects such as.

Tina Odu: Nature and spirituality, which we began to explore in an earlier episode on Indigenous families.

Tina Odu: Beaches.

Tina Odu: Without further ado, let's welcome our host for today, a very esteemed project lead Associate Professor Henley Sachen. Our guest is Doctor Wassia Silan.

Tina Odu: Thank you both for joining us or we'll hand over to you.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Hello everyone. Welcome to the podcast of Decolonizing social work.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Field education I'm today's host. My name is Henglien Lisa Chen. Lian is a Chen I grew up in Taiwan before I come to England, I speak Mandarin and Taiwan is the small island near Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Henglien Lisa Chen: So well, I came to the UK and finished my MA degree in social work. My first job was one of the example was quite striking me, although I have a very good life manager. One time I assess old person who needs the shopping support for the grocery.

Henglien Lisa Chen: He identified his needs is to have a care assistant to go with him to the shop every day.

Henglien Lisa Chen: I thought that was quite good and I felt food. Grocery shopping is very basic human needs. I went back to my manager and my manager said, who is going to shop every day on their grocery. People will normally shop weekly.

Henglien Lisa Chen: I got quiet, but down to the knees, I thought.

Henglien Lisa Chen: I was also the one who shop near the everyday because that's what we did in Taiwan.

Henglien Lisa Chen: I didn't challenge her and I went ahead to make a recommendation on my care assessment. That was the time before our Care Act 2014 being introduced in England.

Henglien Lisa Chen: The Care Act 2014 England specifically emphasised the well-being principle, including encompassing the spike like dignity, health, safety, participation and relationship.

Henglien Lisa Chen: The act also specify those defined need to focusing on clients service users perspective rather than professional.

Henglien Lisa Chen: I'm very delighted to let my guest introduce herself today. Who is Russian? She also came from Taiwan, where I came from.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Instead of Alahan ethnicity, she is an indigenous, so I'm handed over to Wasiq Silan for her to introduce herself.

Wasiq Silan: Thank you. Thank you, Lisa, hi. Greetings to you. Hello, friends. Thanks for listening. I am from the Ulai village in the northern Diane Territory. I created you in Bayonne, so the language of the Diane people, which is in the.

Wasiq Silan: My villages in the northern part of the Diantara Atory in the Danaan River Valley, and like Lisa has kindly introduced, I'm currently based in National Topia University and the Department of Indigenous Development and Social Work, so we are focusing together in social justice.

Wasiq Silan: Political science law from the indigenous perspective and also preparing our students to be.

Wasiq Silan: Helping professionals and social workers and many of our students are of indigenous ancestry and on top of me being in the department I'm actually, I have stayed in Finland for the past 12 years, so being able to be and situated here in Europe and understanding the care.

Wasiq Silan: System and both the challenges and struggle has been a true gift and I hope that I can contribute also to that and speaking to that context.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Thank you, Pasha. So to help listening everywhere, understand the foundation of the indigenous approaches.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Could you introduce a call idea or?

Henglien Lisa Chen: Practise perhaps, like Gaga, is that right, traditional laws and way of life, or the bias understanding of a holistic way of living?

Henglien Lisa Chen: What fundamental lessons about community strength, deep connections, and what it means to truly flourish? Can social students and practitioners, whether in the UK or elsewhere, take from the specific indigenous wisdom?

Wasiq Silan: So just to start, what we are trying to build here to have this care or care system care model or cultural humility lessons and this environment is really based on the idea that each community has our own way of taking care of ours.

Wasiq Silan: So no matter you are from indigenous communities or not, I'm sure that from the small village in where you come from in Jai or it could be a small communities in the mountains where the die young people has long been living.

Wasiq Silan: Before the state, before the government has came to our village, we have our own way of taking care of our young people. Our old people of a way of striking the balance between different beings, no matter, it's human being or non human being just to live.

Wasiq Silan: And to place ourselves to ground ourselves in the environment.

Wasiq Silan: So the idea is that there is this system that's already in place and the national state, the nation state came in. They placed this system that they think is very good, but then it's usually coming at the cost of not seeing or absorbing.

Wasiq Silan: The perspectives of the local people, so just linking to what you just mentioned. So God, that is a very important.

Wasiq Silan: Like our law, basically, our cosmology of how we interact with each other. So everything is written in the idea of Gaga. So to insert the ideas of Dylan Law Gaga into the social work practise or.

Wasiq Silan: Indigenous development. The idea is not just oh, this is another way of care. Practise to get closer to the.

Wasiq Silan: People, it's not just yet another or practise, but it's more about challenging the dominant way of organising care of who has the power to define what is good care and who are the older people that we are serving in the context of Taiwan, where I'm more familiar.

Wasiq Silan: The long term care system is mainly built from the urban Han Chinese perspective.

Wasiq Silan: And then it's really built without any input from the people on the ground, including migrant people, indigenous people and many people that is being marginalised.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Yeah, I think it's very well said and it is a very good point to help us to aware that even within the small.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Island, Taiwan there is very diverse in terms of the culture and in terms of the way of living, but also in terms of the way of sustain and promote.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Well-being across different local area in Taiwan so led to my another question to you was that that I'm intrigued about your latest one of your latest publications that you are co-author.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Which bring a very important critique, highlighting how current neoliberalism, for example.

Henglien Lisa Chen: The emphasis on differences or measurable outcome in surveys, which many of us will recognise in our own countries.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Can sometimes, even with good intentions, sometimes goodwill is not good enough, can create new barriers for indigenous self-determination and holistic well-being.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Could you share your reflection on these interconnected challenges, please?

Wasiq Silan: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I am very much in love with this publication. It's called the colonising decolonization project and it's like a comparison between Canada and Taiwan. And we're looking at different cases of how the helping professionals or the different localised.

Wasiq Silan: Effort.

Wasiq Silan: As meant to challenge the bigger system in the name of decolonization, but is actually in itself needs decolonizing, so I am sure like in the UK and also here in Finland, also in Sweden and Norway there is more and more talk about we need to decolonize decolonization is very important, but what does it really mean?

Wasiq Silan: Has become a buzzword and everybody is trying to.

Wasiq Silan: Say that yes.

Wasiq Silan: We're doing decolonizing something. This is really a thinking piece together with Donna Baines and Frank.

Wasiq Silan: So together we are reflecting on the point of there are so many decolonization efforts that's being put in place, but then because of the neoliberal processes that has been in building these KPIs, key performance indicators, metrics and logics of neoliberalism.

Wasiq Silan: Into decolonization efforts, so by making decolonization efforts possible, you are at the same time using the tool of neoliberalism. And does this really make decolonization possible, or does it?

Wasiq Silan: Offset your effort of trying to decolonize and the conclusion is that the disclaimer so that it does not really work. Our conclusion is that if you are using neoliberal tools to decolonize, it actually makes counterproductive. So we.

Wasiq Silan: So I am using this case from local daycare centre, so it's for indigenous older people to spend time and then to connect. And also there are a lot of these like health promotion efforts being built and many of these like small days.

Wasiq Silan: Centres has been in place in Taiwan, like 500 or something in both indigenous communities and also in the urban areas. As you might know that more than half of the indigenous people are now living in the urban areas in Taiwan, so both of them, and that a lot of those efforts are with the surface of the colonisation.

Wasiq Silan: Actually, make your goal impossible because the whole process is wrong. It's not grounded in a way that is serving these people.

Wasiq Silan: But it's more from the managerial perspective. So what we're trying to emphasise through this thinking is really to take a serious look at what we wanted to achieve, what kind of system needs to be remake or challenge or deconstruct and these answers.

Wasiq Silan: Would be very different given that you were focusing in the UK or in Finland or in Taiwan, but I think with we are starting this conversation and starting to build solidarity together. There will be a way forward.

Henglien Lisa Chen: That that is very valuable point. While you are very much stressed, the importances of awareness in terms of the systemic contacts about the systems which is quite contradict to the Care Act in the UK is very much.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Focusing on very narrative individual.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Which instead of looking at the system as a whole like what you just explained in terms of the system approach, there lovely effer to one of your article 2024 paper like you were mentioned about Mahant.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Concepts Holistic Care is a right and the important syllabus is found. If I pronounce it right and that means storytelling or the visiting. So how do you using those approach?

Henglien Lisa Chen: To help the social work educator and the students on placement wherever they may be, to have some dialogue and connection to local or to individuals to understand the more in depth perspective and.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Experience of day-to-day life and the quality of care, for example.

Wasiq Silan: Yes, thank you, Lisa. It's very humbling to be presenting this gayan concepts malahan, which you kindly presented is about the relational storytelling, holistic care and custodianship and descent, which is like also visiting and also establishing relationships. So basically both.

Wasiq Silan: Terms, they are very much grounded in the diet.

Wasiq Silan: Cosmology, which is about relationships, about how we see each other, how we connect with each other, not just between human but also with different and sense strong beings with the skies, with the land, with the stones, with the fish, with different things. So how you.

Wasiq Silan: See yourself in this web of relationships. I have been like really having this chance to look at the practises and knowledge of the die young people from outside in because growing up in the Diane community.

Wasiq Silan: There is so many layers of colonial gaze, if you understand what I mean, that if you grow up in Taiwan, you feel that what you have is not valuable. Things are just there and you don't really know that those are.

Wasiq Silan: Important things that just come from your ancestors.

Wasiq Silan: So what do you think?

Henglien Lisa Chen: Yeah.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Yeah, I I do echo with your experience that when I was in Taiwan, I can't wait to get out from there. But while I'm in the UK, I start to appreciate what my heart while I was in Taiwan. So it's this kind of appreciation.

Henglien Lisa Chen: While you have a distance from your privileged, really. So in our course training we are very much focused to nurturing our social student in terms of self-awareness.

Henglien Lisa Chen: On the same self and while we are talking about self-awareness, it's in two category under this umbrella. One is self strength and one is the area for improvement.

Henglien Lisa Chen: But you highlight another aspect which is so valuable I haven't thought about. It's about.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Understand what to appreciate. Appreciate yourself. I think that it's very important in terms of appreciate others as well. One thing we can further strengthen in our social work training and in our social work field education is about behalf like you say about.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Appreciation. Appreciate ourselves to begin with, in order to develop appreciation to people who we work with.

Wasiq Silan: Yeah. Thank you.

Henglien Lisa Chen: And we are going to have a further conversation about how our students can work together at very soon in other occasions, and I must confess that it always haunting me from my early years experience while I was in the Union in Taiwan, in Taiwan, you normally have.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Let the volunteer group from the UNI go to the indigenous community to be a volunteers.

Henglien Lisa Chen: One of the striking remarks I received, I still remember so lively is one of the little children told me about.

Henglien Lisa Chen: You come here to change our life.

Henglien Lisa Chen: And you stay here only for a few weeks, and then you're gone. And how about us? You let us here, changing our life and leave us here alone. So that is something that I feel quite striked and haunting me for the rest of my life. And that is also share. How responsible.

Henglien Lisa Chen: And how important job that social?

Henglien Lisa Chen: Can be that changing people's life but be responsible to support people, to live their life, they feel.

Henglien Lisa Chen: It's the way that's living well in their own time.

Wasiq Silan: And that's how we can think about well-being together in a different way, but still, like, together with our students.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Yeah, indeed. So my last question to you, Asian is about in the UK, normally we are quasi emphasised and quite encouraging.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Our social work student to do the reflective practise in their field, education in their placement to reflect on.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Why they do certain things?

Henglien Lisa Chen: What they did, how they did it and how to improve, so that is a principle of reflective practise.

Henglien Lisa Chen: So from your perspective.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Is there any key question that the prompt question you can help the students support students to carry on with their reflective practise to promote the well-being of people that they are working with?

Wasiq Silan: Yeah. Thank you, Lisa, for the question. Wow, this is a very important question to reflect upon, but I think before to get into the reflecting questions, I wanted to pause a bit and then go back to the the experience that you share that, this experience that has been haunting you for a while from the university experiences.

Wasiq Silan: And I think it's not just you, but it's like a generation of wounds of what do we do.

Wasiq Silan: When we enter in different communities because I have been in one of these groups and also with my colleagues, many of them actually come into the profession of social work or indigenous development, social work, because of this experience, because some people, they go into a different community and say, yes, I'm going to transform your life.

Wasiq Silan: You can be more like us, and then they left and then they never really think so much anything about this anymore. But then for some others it stays.

Wasiq Silan: Them then many of them come later. They realise that oh, it's not like actually we who give service to the people, but it's the other way around. It's about like we learn together with the community is not how I in the superior ground to come give you who knows little of how to survive.

Wasiq Silan: This modern society, and that brings us to what are the points that the students here in UK could bring with them in their reflective process? And I think one of the important things would definitely be.

Wasiq Silan: Precisely this what is the power relations that makes you?

Wasiq Silan: A social worker who has the power to go into communities, what kind of power imbalances are there built in this structure? You need to know the history and the context right of what makes these people here? What are the historical trauma that has been in place? What is the survival?

Wasiq Silan: Strategies and that keeps them here. And how can you learn together with them not to give them stuff, but the is in a more egalitarian way of.

Wasiq Silan: What are the?

Wasiq Silan: Strength and knowledge that's grounded in the culture that you as a social worker would also benefit from and really to ask ourselves who we are and who are we serving.

Wasiq Silan: And I think that's an important starting point. It's not necessarily easy and I think I also struggle with that. But then I'm just hoping that to to start and then inviting the students to also think about the ethics of who we are here to tell these people what to do and how to live. And at the same time, just keep your.

Wasiq Silan: Heart and your ears open.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Thank you very much exactly what you just said, what Jiang it is not about the top to down approach and with this kind of approach is interdependent shape in terms of knowledge exchange. But it's also about feeling good about the work we are doing.

Henglien Lisa Chen: With people.

Wasiq Silan: And I think this also links to the green social work that has been in the field for a long time, right from the indicent perspective, is never only about humans or individuals, but it's also about the environment, the environment in the sense is not just about the nature conservation, entertainment, but it's more about how do you find home so.

Wasiq Silan: I think sometimes when I am learning from my students, I find out most of these social work exams, subjects that's very much focused on the individuals. The one beautiful exam.

Wasiq Silan: That I just came to mind is that so in Taiwan we have these like indigenous social workers that has been supporting by the cause of indigenous people for a long time. And one thing that they tried to support a child that has not been in a good family situation is not to introduce services to him immediately.

Wasiq Silan: But you started the question of asking what is your indigenous name? How do we call you so like giving the indigenous name? Like what?

Wasiq Silan: Design it's not just about oh, I have a different name, but it's also about placing you in the family web of relations of who cares for you, who are your ancestors, who are your grandparents, or are they? And then how are we all are related. So I feel that this spiritual layer and the relational layer is very important.

Wasiq Silan: Sometimes it's not so much emphasising social work, so just to highlight that.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Yeah, it is very important about the spirituality element and the knowledge in social work, training too. Indeed, and spirituality is not only about religion, it's about the local culture. And like you say about the ancestors value and the ethic and belief.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Well, so it's quite a mix and the quite complex, the complexity is something that the social worker social work students need to aware and they need to be trained.

Henglien Lisa Chen: So thank you ever so much. You have skipped so much and such rich understanding from BYU's perspective, the various perspectives as well. And there is so much to reflect on for us to promote decolonization in social work, field education and practise.

Wasiq Silan: Thank you so much.

Wasiq Silan: It's not a definite end, but I hope it's a beginning of a way thinking together and reflecting together and it will be a true privilege to come back again and all the best for the students and also for you. Lisa, thank you so much for having me.

Henglien Lisa Chen: Thank you.

Eleanor Hogan: Thank you, Lisa and washer for your conversation. It was really interesting to hearing about the experiences of working with families, maybe reflect on a similar experience that I had when I was on my first placement in children and families. And it was when a child said to me that things were fine now because I was there.

Eleanor Hogan: But when you're gone, it'll go back to how it was before, and it was really hard to hear someone that you're working with saying something like that and knowing that you are going to have to leave.

Eleanor Hogan: Them.

Eleanor Hogan: And it shows why it's so important to remember our own well-being and reflecting on things like this can also help us inform our practise.

Tina Odu: I absolutely agree. One of my key takeaways from the conversation is there is no magic wand. It sounds like a magic framework for for working with people. It goes back to concepts such as reflexivity, which is challenging.

Tina Odu: Ruined biases want assumptions from the conversation, and that's a huge task. As simple as it might sound, I know as a student myself I I realise when working with people, the situations that make me think about when I reflect back on actually.

Tina Odu: Can't see how my biases came into play, and sometimes I feel ashamed about that. Is is learning to accept this and be open and willing to make the change? I guess that's what Lisa and washer were emphasising there.

Eleanor Hogan: Thank you for listening to this episode. Stay tuned for the next episode. We'll be sharing more of our reflections on decolonizing social work field education.

Eleanor Hogan: You've been listening to the Decolonising social work Field Education podcast, global dialogues for change, and International participatory project with students, experts by experience, practitioners, and academics funded by the European Association of Schools of Social Work.

Eleanor Hogan: At by associate Professor Hingley and Lisa Chen at the University of Sussex and Co, produced by Mitali Kulkarni, visit dialogueswfe.org and follow US online.

Eleanor Hogan: Decolonize and social work starts with you. Stay tuned.