For what do we educate future social workers? For service delivery or policy engagement?

ZOGATA-KUSZ, Agnieszka and Roman BALÁŽ. For what do we educate future social workers? For service delivery or policy engagement? In The ESPAnet 2022 Vienna Conference. Vienna: ESPAnet Europe. 2022.

Basic information

• Original name: For what do we educate future social workers? For service delivery or policy engagement?
• Authors: ZOGATA-KUSZ, Agnieszka and Roman BALÁŽ.
• Edition: The ESPAnet 2022 Vienna Conference. Vienna: ESPAnet Europe. 2022.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Field of Study: 50602 Public administration
• Country of publisher: Czech Republic
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• Organization unit: Faculty of Social Studies
• Keywords (in Czech): sociální práce, policy practice, vzdělávání v sociální práci, kvalitativní obsahová analýza
• Keywords in English: social work, policy practice, social work education, qualitative content analysis
• Tags: International impact

Abstract

Although social workers are described (in recent social work declarations such as the global agenda) as important actors in shaping the welfare system and its policies and programs, we cannot overlook the differences between declaration and practice. According to the representative quantitative research conducted in 2019, 65 % of Czech social workers do not engage in systemic/policy changes. And most of them claim that they do not get involved because of insufficient knowledge and skills. In the context of the Czech Republic, it can be argued that social workers are not professionally trained to engage politically, to become policy actors. Social work education is a significant factor in social workers’ political engagement, thus. We have analysed the content of social work programs carried out by schools that are members of the Czech Association of Educators in Social Work. Our contribution answers the question: “How is the topic of policy engagement constructed in the Czech social work programs?” The analysis results suggest that the social work education in the Czech Republic does not sufficiently reflect the societal need for social workers routinely engaged in policy and still adheres to the traditional idea of the social worker as a service deliverer.