sicsw - targets

SICSW - Society for International Cooperation in Social Work

In an article titled "Why the International Welfare Work is Needed" German social work pioneer Alice Salomon gave important reasons for the internationalization of social work:
"No one country in the cultural sphere of mankind today is self-sufficient and can exist without relations to others. The countries are dependent on each other, in economic, social, and mental-moral ways. The world has become smaller. … Individuals and nations have become closer, in a good and in a bad sense. In a new dimension, they can destruct and ruin themselves or fight with each other or fight against poverty, ignorance, illness and death. … This is because the causes of adversity lie often besides the national boarders, within which they occur and the effects of adversity reach beyond national borders. Hence, every country has an interest in other countries, developing a well-regulated welfare system, and therefore the joint measures to combat adversity are indispensable." (Alice Salomon 1930)
In view of the globalization, which is only at first sight a purely economic phenomenon, it is not astonishing that Salomon`s analysis is more relevant today than ever before. Many social problems that social work addresses are strongly connected to the structure and dynamic of the global society. This applies "not only to immigrants, refugees, illegals, victims of ethnic cleansings, bi-national couples etc., who for decades have accounted for the major part of social work clients. Also poverty, unemployment, the working poor and at the same time wealth and luxurious islands, racial intolerance, ethnocentrism, and right-wing extremism are by no means home-made" (Silvia Staub-Bernasconi 2003).

Hence, one pillar of social work´s international character is a global structure of social problems, which social work has to take into account while analyzing problems and resources and developing appropriate scientifically grounded interventions. The social work profession and discipline can look back at a long history of international networking, which manifests itself today in many international journals, conferences, organizations, and study programs.

Yet the international character of social work is also always a result of the exchange between social work practitioners and researchers in science of social work. The openness to learn from each other and engage in a dialogue, to apply best-practice models to the different national and regional contexts, to compare national social policies on an international scale and, last but not least, to orient the practice and research projects on international issues, is a way to integrate the global context in national activities.

The Society for International Cooperation in Social Work aims specifically to bring forward this last aspect. With it we do not intend to compete with existing organizations and their approaches, but rather we mean to support an exchange among social work professionals. All projects of the Society for International Cooperation in Social Work are united in their aim of building networks, which will enable practitioners to place their own activities in a global, world-societal context and initiate innovative projects with an international focus.