Events
Associate Professor Jessica Toft Presents Workforce Webinar for European Social Work Research Association
Associate Professor Jessica Toft presents workforce webinar title Democracy for social workers? "Practising social work in neo-liberal contexts: the impact on self, service users and opportunities for resistance and change" for European Social Work Research Association (ESWRA).
Abstract: Reflecting growing concerns about the impact of social work practice on social workers and service users, this symposium draws on four studies from Romania, the USA, Northern Ireland and an international literature review. These enable consideration of what it means and how it feels to practise social work in neo-liberal contexts, and reports on ways in which social workers, social work students and social work academics are seeking to resist and generate change. Using democracy as the key organising concept and principle, the symposium questions the extent to which democratic values and practices characterise the experience of being a social worker. It argues that an erosion of democracy within social work is manifest in how social workers are treated as individuals and as a professional group. Moreover, it interrogates the feasibility of social workers supporting service users to seek social justice from a basis of relative powerlessness, compromised autonomy and often a sense of professional despondency.
In seeking to redress this, the presentations reflect the democratic value of research with social workers and social work students, for affording primacy to their voice and recording the barriers they encounter in neo-liberal working contexts, including, unmanageable workloads, serious resource constraints, a lack of agency and power, and moral injury arising from being unable to practise in line with the core social work value of social justice, all of which manifest in high levels of stress.
The seminars are free of charge.
If you want to find out more about the ESWRA Seminar series, or catch up on past seminars visit the ESWRA Seminar Page.
Photographs taken at the event may be used in University of Minnesota print and online publications, promotions, or shared with the CEHD community.
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