Over the past two decades, my primary research focus has been the development of the Poverty-Aware Paradigm (PAP). PAP is a conceptual and practice-oriented framework that defines poverty as a violation of human rights and highlights the everyday resistance of people living in poverty. It integrates critical social work, social activism, and relational psychotherapy, and calls on social workers to understand their practice as political, to resist the Othering of people in poverty, and to stand alongside service users in their struggle against structural injustice.
Since 2015, the Ministry of Welfare and Social Services has been implementing PAP nationwide, launching new programs and rights centers in social service departments and establishing the role of the Social Rights Social Worker. PAP training has also been incorporated into academic curricula and in-service education.
Since 2020, PAP has expanded beyond social work and is now used in the training of lawyers in the Ministry of Justice and teachers in “last chance” high schools.
