Walking Alongside: Moral Distress and Accompaniment in Social Work Practice with Unaccompanied Immigrant Youth
Social workers in government settings, community organizations, schools and government-contracted agencies are instrumental in supporting unaccompanied youth seeking refuge in the United States. And yet, little scholarly attention has been given to the distress or the endurance of social workers working with unaccompanied youth. Through analysis of 21 participant interviews with social workers who support unaccompanied youth throughout the United States, this dissertation builds on and extends the concepts of moral distress and accompaniment. By integrating the theoretical frameworks of moral distress, accompaniment, and liberation-oriented theoretical approaches, this dissertation demonstrates how social workers experience moral distress when they encounter the structural violence (Farmer, 2003; Galtung, 1969) inherent in the systems they work within, the broken resources they are forced to rely upon, and the crises of values they confront as they support unaccompanied youth. At the same time, findings highlight how social workers’ intentional engagement with the principles of accompaniment (whether or not they define it as such) has the power to counteract the brutality of structural violence by empowering social workers to connect with their personal values in practice, encouraging mutual support through circles or “webs of accompaniment” (Watkins, 2019), and welcoming joy into social work practice through expanded definitions of success. Implications include the need for intentional engagement with the principles of accompaniment for social work research, practice, and pedagogy as an antidote for moral distress. In drawing attention to the practices of iii accompaniment, this dissertation contributes to the development of liberatory social work practices and research.
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