The problem is colonialism, a condition that permeates every part of Australian societyand that includes our profession and the manner in which we exist and operate. Histori-cally and currently Australian social work has moved between and been a mix of Englishand American social work. It must be noted at this point that America was also a Britishcolony and is still rooted in colonialism. What we call Australian social work today has itsfoundations in colonisation and is still embedded in colonialism. This colonialism isevident today in the way in which social work is practised, its relationship with Aboriginalpeople and communities, the appropriation of Indigenous knowledges, and the position-ing of Aboriginal social workers. Furthermore, this colonialism is evident in the reaction toAboriginal social workers when they speak out about the problems within our professionand the resulting white fragility that sadly happens more than it doesn’t.

Given the extensive exposure to violence and ongoing conflict inPalestinian communities, evidence-based trauma-focused inter-ventions are essential for addressing the significant mental healthburden. Most existing research on psychosocial interventions inPalestinian communities has focused on cognitive-behavioralapproaches, trauma-focused therapies or community-based psy-chosocial support programs, which have demonstrated effective-ness for symptom reduction. Key approaches studied includeTeaching Recovery Techniques (TRT), a trauma-focused cognitivebehavioral therapy (CBT) approach showing effectiveness in mul-tiple randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with Palestinian childrenand adolescents (Barron et al., 2013; Diab et al., 2015); NarrativeExposure Therapy (NET), which differs from narrative therapy andhas been studied in some Middle East and North African (MENA)regions but not specifically with Palestinian populations (Husseinet al., 2020); and various group crisis interventions and psycho-social support programs implemented during conflict periods(Thabet and Vostanis, 2005)

Humanitarian mental health interventions remain largely grounded in Western diagnostic frameworks, emphasizing individual pathology, symptom reduction, and short-term psychosocial support (Mills, Citation2014; Watters, Citation2010). While these approaches can be valuable, they often risk depoliticizing and pathologizing survival by individualizing distress rather than recognizing it as a predictable consequence of chronic exposure to coercive contexts - occupation, dispossession, and collective loss - that define everyday life (Kohrt & Mendenhall, Citation2016; Summerfield, Citation2004). Liberation psychology and decolonial mental health frameworks argue that psychological wellbeing cannot be disentangled from the realities and structural conditions that produce harm (Helbich & Jabr, Citation2022; Martín-Baró, Citation1996). In the Palestinian context, this means acknowledging how instability, movement restrictions, fragmentation, loss, lack of protection and safety, and systemic precarity shape emotional and social worlds. The rapidly shifting structural and social landscape in Palestine further constrains data collection, reducing the capacity of research to fully capture the breadth and complexity of these intersecting determinants.