Report of
The 4th European Conference for Social Work Research
15th – 17th April 2014, Free University of Bozen, Bolzano
Prepared by Karena Tang
Project Officer
The Hong Kong Council of Social Service
15 May 2014
Table of Content
1. Introduction 3
2. Evaluation of the Event Programme 3
3. Observation/ Implication to Hong Kong 5
4. Evaluation of the Event Organization 6
5. Conclusion 7
1. Introduction
The objective of the annual European Conference for Social Work Research (ECSWR) is to strengthen the scientific bases of social work via providing an arena for researcher, practitioners and policy makers to disseminate and discuss knowledge which is relevant to social work theory and practice and social policy. In response to the recent challenges in connecting scholars, researchers and practitioners endeavors to the core of social work mission and the support of social solidarity, the theme of the conference this year is “Private troubles or public issues? Challenges for social work research”.
The 4th ECSWR was a three-day conference with four keynote speeches. In between the keynote speeches, there were six breakout sessions for workshops, parallel sessions and symposium under a wide range of topics. There was also one timeslot allocated for special interest group meeting for scholars worldwide who are interested to work together during and between conferences on specific themes. (For programme detail, please refer to Appendix I)
In what follows, the report will first evaluation the event programme before coming with several important observations that worth the reflection and discussion in the local context. After that, comments will also be made to the organization of the programme to inform future event organizers. It will then end with a concluding remarks and overall comment to the programme.
2. Evaluation of the Event Programme
The conference had addressed the major methodology concerns in social work research
To start with, the conference had addressed the major methodology concerns in social work research. Three out of four keynotes speeches had centered the discussion over “what makes social work a science”. There were three main points covered in the keynotes in the discussion. Firstly, the keynotes spent a better part of the time on debating what counts as “evidence” for knowledge accumulation in the social work discipline. To them, scholars in the social work discipline needs to advocate a new understanding of “evidence” and “knowledge especially in human sciences so as to counteract the mainstream understanding of “evidence” from natural sciences. Secondly, the keynotes called for the collaboration of scholars to come up with a set of well developed methods and tools for knowledge construction particularly suitable for human sciences. For instance, participatory action research and reflective knowledge from practices might well be useful tools for knowledge accumulation in social work. Lastly, the keynotes also highlight the importance of “professionalism in social work” via the promotion of evidence-based practice. It is because without systematic review and application of knowledge in the social work practice (i.e. to apply theories to inform practice and collect “evidence” to review/verify the theories), hardly can the social work discipline really become real “sciences”.
Highlighted the essential role of social work in policy advocacy for social and human development
Another major point the conference highlighted was the advocacy role of social work. On top of the three aforementioned keynotes, the last keynote was about a study of “Social Workers as Policy Actor”. It reviewed the role, participation and influence of social workers in the Legislature in Israel. Apart from concluding that the social workers has active participation and impactful implication to policy development in the Israeli legislature, the key point the study would like to make is that it is also the social workers’ mission to turn seemingly “private troubles” into “public issue”. In other words, although it seems the first priority of the social workers is to deal with improving the quality of life of their clients by helping them out from the “private troubles”, in fact, some of the “private troubles” comes from an unjust policy/system. As a result, it is equally important for the social worker to be sensitive enough to advocate policy changes so as to truly protect the vulnerable and promote progressive social changes in human development.
Diverse coverage of topics in the symposium and parallel sessions
In contrast to the clear theme presented in the keynotes, topics covered in the symposium and plenary sessions are far more diverse. There were sessions discussing theoretical concerns such as the debate in realism, methods for knowledge accumulation and construction in social work with different target groups (e.g. victims and women) and in various service areas. As I am the sole delegate in this tour, I managed to attend some of the sessions only and the sessions I attended are those on participative learn process and knowledge production in social work.
3. Observation/ Implication to Hong Kong
There were three main observations from this tour that worth further discussion.
Similar challenges faced Europe and Hong Kong in the Social Work research and Social Work as a profession
First of all, from the observation in this conference, Social Work in Europe also faces the challenges on whether this discipline can be qualified as “sciences”. And they view it as the problem of lacking “scientific evidence” to support the everyday social work practice and the weak knowledge accumulation due to the lack of sophisticated tools for systematic review. That may well be why they see the promotion of evidence-based practice and “professionalism in social work” as the key solutions to the problem in addition to the philosophical debates in what counts and “evidence” and “knowledge”. In this area, the situation in Hong Kong is more or less on par with the European experience.
Practice Research Collaboration in Europe: A top down and academia dominated approach
Secondly, even though speakers at the conference also agree that evidence-based practice and professionalism in social work in the trend in the social work discipline and take NGOs and academia collaboration seriously, the European experience seems lag a bit behind the trend in Hong Kong. In the plenary sessions, there were several presentations on the experience on practitioners and academia collaboration. However, the collaborations are more likely a very top-down on with the domination of the scholars in the partnership. According to several speakers who are either scholars or doctoral students, they all said that the collaborations were kick start by funding the project/ service from the institutions and then a student/ scholar will work on field together with the frontline workers so as to collect the data needed for analysis. In the process, the involved frontline social workers have very limited participation or involvement in the research work. When I raised a question in the Q&A session asking if they have taken the opportunity to engage and enhance the capacity of the frontline workers and the NGOs in the project in the research, the speaker said they have never thought in that way and thanks me for bring up such an angle. However, from my experience in organizing and participating in the local evidence-based practice conferences in the past few years, this is just a very commonly asked question.
A new way to engage and empower frontline workers in practice research
Thirdly, instead of relying on the academia and practitioners’ collaboration to engage and empower frontline practitioners in practice research, a softer way I learn from this conference is the use of the “reflective learning process” to facilitate frontline workers to recap observations and lessons learn from practice to reach the goal of knowledge accumulation. There was a presentation entitled “Methodical Principle in Girl’s Work” in one of the parallel sessions[1]. It was about the development of a gender specific protocol and guideline to deal with young girls in need. Seeing that there is no gender specific protocol and guidelines available for the NGOs whose clients are all young females she works with, the speaker decided to develop a gender specific protocol and guidelines for their service. She invited a group of students from a master class in social work professions who had experience in teenage girl services to attend reflective sessions so as to identify the tacit knowledge they have gathered from their practice. They brainstorm and discuss the principles with the cases they work on. As a result, nine methodological principles of gender specific social work with girls have been formulated and they are now testing the protocol and guidelines in various affiliated service centers and the participants in this reflective learning group meet regularly to review and update the protocol. It is a good case to illustrate how reflective learning group can also be a good means to produce “knowledge” from practice while frontline workers can also feel empowered to do so. Even though the immediate output of such exercise can hardly be classified as “scientific knowledge”, it is definitely practical knowledge useful for practice. After continuous applications and reviews, evidence can be accumulated to testify if these principles can stand against time and applicable to various scenarios.
4. Evaluation of the Event Organization
Generally speaking, the organization of the event is satisfactory.
Interest group meetings – participant engagement and platform for collaboration
In terms of event organization, the idea of organizing “interest groups meeting” is a very good idea for participants’ engagement. Before the conference, the organizer had sent out an invitation to all participants to call for topic and abstract submission for the organization of interest group meetings during the conference. In the meantime, for participants who have not submitted any topic and abstract are free to enroll to any of the proposed interest group. Once an interest group got more than 8 enrollments, the organizer would provide an official venue for the group to meet up during the conference and the proposed topic would become a breakout session of the conference next year. Such arrangement aims not just at providing a platform to facilitate scholars/ workers working on the same topic to look for opportunities for further collaboration, it also engaged the participants to decide the programme of the upcoming conference to enhance their ownership of the conference and make sure the issue covered in the conference fits the taste of the participants.
Printed abstract books matter
However, one major drawback of the event organization is that there was no printed version of abstract book for the participants. Without the aid of the abstract book, participants can only pick the breakout session by guessing through the session and presentation topics. Even though the abstract book has gone online before the conference, there was no notification in advance and it did not available till the last few days of the conference.
A better balance between presentations and discussion needed
Besides, the role of moderator is essential to facilitate the discussion in the breakout session. Although the moderators have done a good job in time management, time allocated to discussion for each and across presentation was very limited. In fact, there was nearly no discussion across presentations in under the same topic across symposium. Without much discussion, there was little chance for participants to ask for clarification or ideas exchange.
5. Conclusion
Over and above all, the European Conference for Social Work Research has provided the participants with a fruitful experience to grasp the latest development both in the Social Work discipline and in the field. It is particular good at introduce the participants with the tools that can be used for social work research with the illustration of tons of studies and cases from various European countries. However, there were only limited service insights from the conference as the presentations focus much on the debates in methods and theoretical concerns. There was not enough focus on the findings on the service studies given the time limits for presentation and discussion. However, this is a really good event to get practitioners ready to try conducting practice research.
Appendix I – List of sessions attended
Keynote / Date / Time1. / ‘From objective to subjective – social work research as professional responsibility’
Speaker: Walter Lorenz / 15/4 / 17:00 – 18:00
2. / The Idea of ‘Evidence’ in Evidence –based Policy and Practice
Speaker: Edward Mullen / 16/4 / 9:00 – 10:00
3. / ‘Policy Practice: Social Worker as Policy Actor’
Speaker: Idit Weiss / 16/4 / 17:30 – 18:30
4. / ‘Science and Social Work: a Paradoxical Vision’
Speaker: Ian Shaw / 17/4 / 9:00 – 10:00
Workshops/parallel sessions
1 / Workshop – “Practice-based Research” and “Research-based Practice” – lessons learned from a Practice – Research Collaborative / 16/4 / 10:15 – 11:15
2 / Parallel Session – Evidence and uncertainty: reflections on social work knowledge production / 16/4 / 11:45 – 13:15
3 / Parallel Session – Research in social work as participative learning process 1 / 16/4 / 14:15 – 15:45
4 / Workshop – Social work professionalism and the politics of knowledge generation, dissemination and implementation: exploring the current contours / 17/4 / 10:15 – 11:15
5 / Parallel Session – Social Work Social Policy and Political Action / 17/4 / 11:45 – 13:15
6 / Parallel Session – Research in social work as participative learning process 2 / 17/4 / 14:15 – 15:45
Appendix II – Conference Programme of the 4th European Conference for Social Work
Tuesday – April15, 2014
14.00 – 20.00 / Registration Open17.00 / Welcome speech: Prof. Konrad Bergmeister -
President of the Free University of Bozen/Bolzano
Welcome speech: Dr. Thomas Mathà
Director of DepartmentRessort Gesundheit und Sport, Arbeit, Soziales und Chancengleichheit
Keynote: Walter Lorenz: ‘From object to subject - social work research as professional responsibility’
Chair: Silvia Fargion
Launch of the European Social Work Research Association:
Ian Shaw, Jeanne Marsh and Annamaria Campanini
19.00 / Welcome Reception *
Wednesday – April 16, 2014
9.00 – 10.00 / Keynote:
Edward Mullen ‘The Idea of ‘Evidence’ in
Evidence-based Policy and Practice’