We are delighted to present you the last of this year’s issues of the European Journal of Social Work, the first year Jochen Devlieghere and I acted as Editors in Chief. It has been an interesting year, which brought many different challenges to our attention. In a European and global context in which principles of social justice and solidarity are increasingly under pressure, the need for platforms to discuss and present critical research and practices in an international context becomes even more pressing. An ongoing challenge for the European Journal of Social Work – and other journals – is to find a way to be more inclusive to a diversity of research perspectives, from different countries and research traditions, while at the same time keeping a high threshold for research quality and rigor. Together with the editorial board, we want to look for ways to open up the journal for voices less heard off. As such, we invite also researcher less familiar with our journal to become part of our research community.
In this last issue, we present eighteen papers from a diversity of countries, exampling some of the richness and variety of social work research in a European context that the European Journal of Social Work already embraces.
To kick off, we present six papers from Southern Europe. From Spain, Cardona and Campos-Vidal discuss the impact of the economic crisis on the practice of social casework. Their study analyses the way in which social workers in community services face the understanding of the problem situation jointly with their clients.
Rodríguez, Camacho Ballesta and Lozano-Peña then again present a study on the factors associated with the granting of long-term care benefits to the elderly in Andalusia, suggesting that income level is a key factor for being cared for at an institution while the direction of the relationship is different for private and public institutions.
The last paper from Spain, written by Garcia-Castilla and colleagues addresses the educational potential of e-social work by focusing on social work training in Spain. The authors argue that ICT has become an essential tool in the initial training of future social work practices. They highlight the importance of the acquisition of digital skills throughout the entire social work training.
From Italy, Genova and Barberis discuss social workers as intercultural mediators and research challenges for collaboration and intercultural awareness. The article aims to contribute to the debate on the welfare reform process to support migrants and their descendants’ equal rights and participation in society, highlighting the need for collaboration between interculturally aware social workers and intercultural mediators to tackle institutional structural weaknesses in such professions as part of an organisational innovation process in social-welfare institutions.
From Greece, Papouli gives an account of Aristotle’s virtue ethics as a conceptual framework for the study and practice of social work in modern times. In her paper, she highlights the importance of Aristotle’s model of virtue ethics for today’s social workers and students, as it can help them to build an ethical character and promote ethical conduct in both their personal and professional lives.
Pentaraki, writing from a Northern Ireland perspective, also addresses the situation in Greece, discussing the understanding of austerity measures within the leadership of the Professional Association of Social Workers in Greece.
Furthermore, we present a cluster of seven papers from the Nordic countries. To start, Timonen-Kallio from Finland informs us about a study on interprofessional collaboration between residential child care and mental care practitioners. A cross-country study in six European Countries is being presented. Also from Finland, Muurinen addresses service-user participation in developing social services, presenting a pilot case-study of the experiment-driven design approach and its consequences on service users’ agency and participation.
From Norway, Haugen, Slettebø and Ytrehus also focus on user participation by performing a literature study on participation of elderly people with dementia living at home. Their study shows that to understand user participation among people with dementia living at home, both the context of the decisions and the social relations of the person with dementia must be considered.
Dahlø Husby, Kiik and Juul continue by addressing children’s encounters with professionals. In their study, they identify key professional actions that are associated with recognition in collaborative processes with children. They emphasise that further research should concentrate on how to ensure that recognition occurs during communication with children in child welfare services.
In the last Norwegian paper, Skinner, Sogstad and Tingvold draw on findings from a survey of employees in Norwegian nursing homes and home care districts to examine the nature and volume of voluntary, unpaid work in the long-term care services in Norway. They found that nearly all the voluntary contributions take place within cultural, social and other activities that are aimed at promoting mental stimulation and well-being.
Eriksson and Hedberg Rundgren, two Swedish researchers, discuss how to create a supportive environment for unaccompanied minors with refugee status in residential care and what challenges they are confronted with. They formulate possible ways of supporting unaccompanied refugee minors in the process of life in a new country.
Finally, Engwall, Östberg, Andersson, Bons and Bringlöv present a paper in which they have examined the intersection between children and disability in a Swedish social service context from the perspective of childhood studies and disability studies. They conclude that children with disabilities often seem to be reduced to individuals who are lacking in ability and competency and who are profoundly victimised by power structures that favour the adult perspective in social services.
The last group of four papers represents Western Europe. In their contribution, Kampen and Tonkens from The Netherlands develop the notion of a personalised approach in activation work, by analysing Dutch workfare volunteers’ experiences with activation, claiming time is a crucial notion within this approach.
Walsh, White, Morris and Doherty draw on UK data from an international, comparative project involving eight countries, in which they examined how social workers’ conceptions and definitions of family impact on the way they engage with complex families, and how social policies that frame social work context impact on the way social workers engage with families.
Buckley and McGregor present an analysis of the nature of institutionalisation and the development of law and policy prior to and after the Second World War. They raise a number of questions about the past use of institutions in Ireland to help illuminate the importance of this issue to the present day.
Lastly, Campbell, Ioakimidis and Maglajlic from Ireland and the UK present a case study approach to explore issues of social work policy and practice in three sites of political conflict in Europe: Northern Ireland; Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Cyprus. They make an appeal for social work to rediscover its rights-based role in working with victims and survivors of political conflict, what the authors describe as: ‘social work for critical peace’.
We end this issue with a paper from Halpern, an Israeli author, who explores the interrelated affinity between social work, nationality and universal humanitarianism through the case study of professional interventions by Jewish social workers in Mandatory Palestine. The article contributes to historical knowledge on social work and its ambivalent approach to a nation-building ideology as opposed to a universal commitment, as well as to an understanding of social work’s attitudes and techniques in working with immigrants and refugees.
We wish you a pleasant and thought-provoking reading!