Mirja Satka

Social work and Nordic welfare policies for children—present challenges in the light of the past1

The aim of this article is to explore welfare policies for children in five Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden—and in that context identify what kinds of issues and challenges social work is currently facing. The data reviewed consist of policy documents, law texts, official reports, statistics, professional texts, and previous research. Policies and laws on childrens protection; provisions, including policies on state benefits and care for children; and the autonomous integrity of children in terms of the norms and policies concerning their participation, in particular in public everyday life, are analysed from a historical perspective. Hence, future challenges for social work are analysed in light of the past. Our conclusion is that social workers have a unique opportunity, based on their close encounters with children as clients, to work for the realisation of childrens rights. Furthermore, by applying a holistic perspective to issues of childhood and parenthood, social workers can contribute to the development of knowledge on how welfare systems can meet the challenges brought about by the new ideas of childrens rights, social changes, globalisation, and the new ideological concepts of risk that have arisen in child welfare. Artikkeli tarkastelee lasten hyvinvointipolitiikan kehitystä viidessä Pohjoismaassa—Tanskassa, Suomessa, Islannissa, Norjassa ja Ruotsissa—ja sen valossa sitä millaisia kysymyksiä ja haasteita tämän päivän lasten hyvinvoinnin parissa tehtävä sosiaalityö kohtaa. Artikkelissa on käytetty aineistona erilaisia politiikkadokumentteja, lakeja, julkisia raportteja,tilastoja, professionaalisia kirjoituksia sekä aiempaa tutkimusta. Artikkelissa analysoidaan historiallisesta näkökulmasta lastensuojelun, sosiaalipalvelujen, lapsille suunnattujen sosiaalisten tukien sekä lasten osallistumista koskevia normeja ja toimintapolitiikkaa. Sosiaalityön tulevaisuushaasteita analysoidaan menneisyyden valossa. Johtopäätöksemme on, että sosiaalityöntekijöillä on ainutlaatuinen mahdollisuus, joka perustuu heidän läheisiin työskentelysuhteisiinsa vaikeissa elämäntilanteissa olevien lasten kanssa, olla lasten oikeuksien todellisia toimeenpanijoita. Lisäksi lapsuuden ja vanhemmuuden näkökulmat yhdistävästä toimintapaikastaan käsin juuri sosiaalityöntekijät voivat vaikuttaa tutkimukseen ja kehittämiseen niin, että hyvinvointipalvelut ja –etuudet kohtaisivat nykyistä joustavammin lasten oikeuksien, yleisen yhteiskuntamuutoksen, globalisaation ja kovin ideologisena pitämämme riskiajattelun haasteet.

The contemporary reconstruction of finnish social work expertise

Abstract Reflexivity has been one of the central themes in Finnish social work discussions in the 1990s. It can be seen as an effort to respond to the demands of post-modern society. This article concentrates on analysing fundamental changes in Finnish social work from the viewpoint of current trends in practical social work, academic training, and research practices. This process can be described as a breakthrough of reflexive professional practices compared to the previous phase of academization, which is also discussed. The present stage of development of Finnish social work provides an interesting example of, and a point of comparison for, the contemporary European discussion about various social work profiles. The demand for reflexive professional competence also increases professional responsibility and autonomy. Consequently it gives rise to new forms of state support for and control over the professions. In Finnish social work this means strengthening social work education and modifications in the...

W(h)ither the academy? An exploration of the role of university social work in shaping the future of social work in Europe

A controversial proposal to pilot the training of child protection social workers through an intensive work-based route in England is being supported and funded by the UK Government. Frontline, the brainchild of a former teacher, locates social work training within local authorities (‘the agency’) rather than university social work departments (‘the academy’) and has stimulated debate amongst social work academics about their role in shaping the direction of the profession. As a contribution to this debate, this paper explores the duality of social work education, which derives its knowledge from both the academic social sciences and the experience of practice within social work agencies. While social work education has traditionally been delivered by the academy, this paper also explores whether the delivery of training in the allied professions of probation and nursing by ‘the agency’ is equally effective. Finally, this paper explores the Helsinki model which achieves a synergy of ‘academy’ and ‘agency’. It suggests that there are alternative models of social work education, practice and research which avoid dichotomies between the ‘academy’ and the ‘agency’ and enable the profession to be shaped by both social work academics and practitioners.

Teaching Social Work Practice Research to Enhance Research-Minded Expertise.

ABSTRACT The emphasis on student cognitive knowledge and expertise in social work education has been shifting more toward reflective learning that features learning networks and dialogical interaction. In the context of innovative knowledge communities for promoting social work expertise, educators have become facilitators of learning that is expanding beyond the boundaries of academia. This article features a case study of the practice research module at the University of Helsinki, Finland, which is based on a partnership with agencies and the University of Helsinki research unit of the Heikki Waris Institute. The aim is to promote new pedagogical thinking about how to explore the complexities of professional competences by actively taking into account the cultural and practical dimensions of work life. Research-minded expertise requires not only lectures or textbooks but also ongoing interaction among service organizations, service practitioners, service users, and researchers.

Finnish eldercare services in crisis: the viewpoint of rural home care workers

This is a case study and illustration of professional rural home care workers’ present situation in some districts of Central Finland after a recent service reform at the grass-root level. Our research question is: what has the impact of the PARAS-reform been on professional agency of rural care workers in the subject-centred sociocultural framework? We investigate the experiences of 10 interviewed rural care workers from the viewpoint of their professional agency by means of thematically oriented content analysis. The research results confirm moral and political tensions between the economical thinking of care management and the home care workers’ practices of good caring. After the reform the professional agency of social care staff has narrowed and their autonomy concerning contextual and relational decisions in elderly care has been severely undermined. Since professional agency at work is not merely practical but also discursive, emotional and deeply embodied as well as a historically constructed entity, the outcome might be that traditional human care ethics is gradually lost, and the ethically most committed care givers leave the field. In conditions of insufficient number of service personnel this is a threat to the social care system.

Transforming European welfare policies, social work and social care practices: a special issue from the Third European Conference for Social Work Research

This special issue documents a selection of the many excellent papers presented at the Third European Conference for Social Work and Social Care Research (ECSWR) in March 2013 at Jyväskylä, Finland. It follows an earlier special issue, which was based on the very first ECSWR research conference series held at Oxford in 2011 (see European Journal of Social Work, volume 15, issue 4). The editors of this important first issue, Staffan Höjer and Brian Taylor, were enthusiastic and full of trust when they described in their editorial the recent developments and near future perspectives for European social work and social care research. One of their future visions, following the North American scholarly developments of the Society for Social Work and Research, was to have a distinct European organization with the task to promote high-level innovative and interdisciplinary social work and social care research, build networks of researchers within Europe as well as foster links between European and wider international research networks. We, the editors of the second special issue in European Journal of Social Work from the third ECSWR conference are very pleased to inform readers that such an organization the European Social Work Research Association (ESWRA), which saw daylight in January 2014, was first conceived and planned at the Jyväskylä conference. Its existence was collectively and legally confirmed in a historic meeting at the recent fourth ECSWR at Bolzano/Bozen, Italy. According to the Foundation Protocol, the new association ‘will take forward the development, practice and utilization of social work research, to enhance knowledge about individual and social problems, and promote just and equitable societies’. And so, an important milestone for the future activities in European social work research has been passed. The ESWRA will oversee the planning of the next ECSWR conference—our fifth so far! The conference will be in April 2015, and will be run in cooperation with the local partnering organizers from the University of Ljubljana. The first chairperson of the new society is a British Professor Ian Shaw. He will be followed in the position in 2015 by an Italian Professor Silvia Fargion. Presently, the new organization is recruiting members across countries and across the many well-established research traditions including social work and social pedagogy, as well as other disciplines in the wide social field. Among its other activities, the association is planning to continue cooperation with the European Journal of Social Work to publish further special issues arising from the conference papers of the future. As the current guest editors, we are grateful to have this opportunity to act as one of the links in the long chain of the ongoing international networking and publishing which has become more and more crucial for the increasingly collaborative present day knowledge production. European Journal of Social Work, 2014 Vol. 17, No. 5, 611–615, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13691457.2014.955326