Good Practice in Challenging Contexts: Acting Ethically in Difficult Times
| Location: | The Resource Centre, 356 Holloway Road, London N7 6PA |
| Date: | 12-November-2010 12:00 |
| Added by: | Maurice Hermans |
| Date added: | 03-August-2010 15:56 |
A constant theme for practitioners in the social welfare field is the tension between ethical principles that emphasise respect for the individuality of human need, and an organisational context in which a complex combination of political pressures, psychological defences and economic constraints results in a tendency to dehumanise, standardise and label. This tension, evident at any time in all social welfare organisations, becomes more acute at times such as those we are now living through, in which political and economic problems originating from outside of the social welfare field are simultaneously increasing need, while reducing the capacity to meet those needs. This results in renewed pressures to ration and target and to process requests for services as rapidly as possible, and perhaps renewed pressure to control and contain, rather than to support and empower.
This context brings into sharper focus difficult ethical questions that have always been present for all social welfare professionals:
What does it mean to practice ethically in such a context both at the level of practitioner, and at the level of management?
How to work within real-world constraints while continuing to assert the value of respect?
How to prepare students for work in such a context?
These are issues that educators and practitioners face across national frontiers, but each country faces its own unique set of challenges, to which it brings its own unique traditions, in terms both of legal/political/organisational structures and of culture. Debating these issues with colleagues from across national boundaries, as well as from across professional boundaries will promote the development of new ways of thinking and teaching.
Building on a series of successful one-day events organised by the international journal Ethics and Social Welfare in collaboration with various partners, this event has been generously supported by the European Association of Schools of Social Work, whose President, Dr Annamaria Campanini, will give the opening address. It will be held at The Resource Centre, Holloway, London (easily accessible from St Pancras international station). It is aimed at educators, practitioners, managers and service users from across the spectrum of social welfare services, and from across Europe and the rest of the world. It will have a capacity of 100 participants, with a mix of keynote speeches, workshops, and plenary sessions. Coffee/tea and a buffet lunch will be provided.
Outline programme
10.00 Arrivals, tea and coffee
10.30 Introduction: Chris Beckett and Sarah Banks, Editorial Board, Ethics and Social Welfare, Sue Lawrence, London Metropolitan University & EASSW Board.
10.45 Welcome: ‘Good Practice in Challenging Times’, Dr Annamaria Campanini, President of EASSW, Lecturer in Social Work, University of Parma, Italy.
11.00 Keynote speakers:
Dr Iain Ferguson, Senior Lecturer in Applied Social Science, University of Stirling, Scotland, UK: ‘Social Welfare, Ethics and Resistance.’
Prof Cynthia Bisman, Professor of Social Work, Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, USA: ‘Social welfare practice: Ethical guidance for the challenges of a global world.’
Third keynote speaker: to be confirmed.
11.45 Plenary discussion, chaired by Dr Campanini, with panel of keynote speakers.
12.20 Presentation of Jo Campling Student Essay Prize: Andrew Maynard, Editorial board, Ethics and Social Welfare.
12.30 Lunch
13.30 Workshops – Choice of one from four on key conference themes
14.45 Tea
15.00 Plenary - brief feedback from workshops and panel responses
15.45 Summing up
16.00 Tea and close
Offers of workshops: to Andrew Maynard. Please send a one page outline of your title and topic, stating how it fits with the conference theme. Deadline for workshop offers: July 30th 2010.
Bookings and inquiries: Paula Brennan, Ethics and Social Welfare, PO Box 171,
Liverpool, L17 0RW, UK.
Downloadable booking form and programme will be made available here on the Ethics and Social Welfare website: under ‘news and offers’.
