This article sets out the testimonies of social workers of basic social services in Catalonia, focussing on the primary problems related to the internal operation of these services and the practice of the profession in our nation when it comes to addressing the chronic nature of poverty. The research underpinning this paper is qualitative and encompasses a SWOT analysis and semi-structured interviews with 18 social workers from across the region who carry out their professional activity locally at both town and county councils.
Bodies of thought is a text that seeks to reflect on thought and action, but in a living, conscious way from the perspective of social work: the need for mutual recognition in which profession and citizenship are part and parcel, and this cannot be achieved without common ground between theories underpinning our everyday practice and popular wisdom.
Power is a fundamental part of social work insofar as it involves the network of social relationships that produce social intervention. Based on the approach proposed by Foucault, the power of the social work profession is addressed specifically, as well as how it is embedded in every day’s practice. The thread is the knowledge-power binomial, which in professional terms is read as a discipline-exercise of the profession. From this, five dimensions are analyzed in which manifestations of social work’s power can occur and that it are necessary to know how to manage.
This article outlines some questions on social work methods. A social group work classification related to the main aims of group work practice is proposed as well as the correspondent technical approach. The criteria for the group practice organization are established and some of the the characteristic phenomena about group process are described.
With this article I make an itinerary for what has been for me the fact of being and acting as supervisor from the social work as autonomous and in the exercise free of the profession in the last 20 years.
A recently established field in Catalonia, palliative care offers a substantial professional domain for social work. The care model required for its development, based on a comprehensive approach to all the issues arising from the situation of terminal illness and the need to care for the patient and their family as a unit, makes the work of the social worker paramount. This has been true since the earliest experiences in English hospices, and indeed it also applies here in Catalonia.
Reading Silvia Navarro’s inspired contribution to the global project on the improvement of primary care services will provide us with a decent spell of optimism and probably encourage us to reread it on subsequent occasions. The author leads us into the realm of reflection on our professional practice, which will allow us to question our professional identity and our role in “that idea of proximity and commitment to citizens that primary care encompassed... in which we all once believed, and some still believe today.”
Based on the track record of social work in terms of achieving the discipline’s goals and the widespread dissatisfaction among the professional community, this article seeks to propose a redefinition of social work. It reveals the need to steer away from the definition that pigeonholes social work intervention into areas focused on specific problems and instead move towards a more comprehensive intervention centred on needs and the community.
This text strives to review an article that was published in the Social Work Journal (RTS) regarding the Basic Method of Social Work in view of the experience gained over the years and as a result of the contributions and critiques that have enhanced it. The review of this method endeavours to create a forum enabling this tool to be useful for social workers and for social transformation.
The new (or indeed not so new) generations of social work professionals may find it unfathomable or may simply be unaware of how the pioneers in this profession managed to build a scientific publication that has survived for 58 years.
