Teaching disaster management: Addressing complexities of social work practice

A course on 'Disaster Management' is offered to social work students at the Masters level in the Department of Urban and Rural Community Development at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. The experience of leaching the course has been extremely interesting. Since much of the literature on disaster management is restricted to the post-disaster situation, the course has had to bring in the development perspective in a bid to seek sustainable solutions - be they physical or psychosocial. Hence, the challenge is to prepare the mindset of students to address disaster issues not just on humanitarian and management principles, but with a perspective that includes foresight, relating to the intricacies of development processes, understanding vulnerabilities, and working within the dynamics of the nation state.