Each year, usually at the beginning of November, we, at the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work with the Association of the Schools of Social Work in Romania organise the Social Work International Conference – SWIC – HERE is the link to our website.
The conference includes workshops, oral paper presentations, posters and keynote addresses. That is the formal part. During coffee breaks, dinner and lunch there are informal discussions when we exchange ideas, impressions and we get to know each other.
This year we reached the 7th edition as, starting with 2016, we have had one conference every year. The big exception was 2020 when we should have organised the European Conference of Social Work Research in Bucharest, but, as we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic changed many plans.
The conference takes place in English and we have participants from all over the world. This year we were joined by researchers and teachers in Sri Lanka, South Africa, USA, besides the participants from Europe (US and UK). Besides the researchers and teachers, practitioners and students also bring contributions by presenting or attending.
There are many things to be said about the conference. One thing I want to point out though is about the lesson I relearned this year.
There are so many theories, methods and tools to do good social work and all these are to be adapted to the local context of intervention.
At the same time, we are one global field and we have one amazing thing in common: the values.
Listening to the keynote addresses and the presentations I realised that besides the values, the goals, the methodologies, social workers have in common the drive to envision more inclusive futures and the means to produce social change. Social workers are dreamers.
For me, it definitely was an opportunity to be reminded of the professional strengths which renews my motivation and keeps me going.
Make today count!
p.s. big thank you to my colleagues for taking the pictures
