Editorial: Social work in twenty-first-century context

Social work students are taught that social work does not take place in a vacuum but strives to maintain a dynamic relationship between its professional ethics and objectives and the social, political, cultural and philosophical contexts in which it is practised. This is a precept easier declaimed than put into practice. The challenges facing social work as we move towards the third decade of the twenty-first century are both globally diverse and associated with evils such as prejudice, persecution and poverty (to name a trio of ‘Ps’) which seem well beyond the remit of the individual social worker but which are intrinsic to the problems affecting the service users with whom s/he engages on a daily basis. Yet, delivery of effective, quality social services, ostensibly more within our reach, is beset with a number of ‘wicked problems’ (Grint and Holt, 2011) to which we struggle to find a solution. The current rise in the popularity of a return to ‘relationship-based social work’ asserts one side of the dynamic between the social work profession and the broader contexts in which we practise and on the other side, we have been pleased to publish in recent issues of this Journal articles that have variously addressed policy practice (Dickens, 2018; Garrett, 2018; Greeson et al., 2018; Mosson et al., 2018); front-line social work and the fight against poverty and socio-economic disadvantage (Grootegoed and Smith, 2018; Kandylaki and Kallinkaki, 2018; Schiettecat et al., 2018; Shamai, 2018); social work intervention in the international refugee and migration crisis (Bilotta and Denov, 2018; Koren, 2018; Määttä, 2018); and social work practice which takes seriously the implications of ecological damage, not just as a global problem but for some of those already the most vulnerable (Ku and Dominelli, 2018). These are but some examples of social work taking a fresh look at the relationship between individual practice and its wider contexts, but we suggest that this is a direction the profession urgently needs to pursue if it is to remain fit for both immediate and higher purpose through the twenty-first century, which goes hand-in-hand with maintaining its international cohesion.

from The British Journal of Social Work Current Issue http://bit.ly/2SlyFMS
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