Building Social Work Politics in Europe

The profession of social work and its representative bodies are in numerous ways involved in European politics. At the same time social work practice is affected by EU regulations, coordination, funding and jurisdiction in relevant policy fields.

This book provides a systematic and practice-based reflection on the issues of how current political activities in the EU and beyond are social work-driven, affect social work, and give reason for an even deeper involvement of organized social work in European politics.

Based on a structured dialogue among professors, students of social work, social workers, social NGOs, and policymakers, this text tackles European policy issues from various perspectives. Starting with theoretical reflections the authors discuss the political mandate of social work and how it applies to the EU polity sui generis as well as to the pan-European institutional settings of the Council of Europe.This is followed by analyses of different European social work policies (homeless policy, European Social Fund (ESF), basic income policy, prostitution policy) and their impact on social services and its clients.The next part shifts the focus to actors and institutions. The authors asked policy staff of social NGOs, human rights organizations, churches and social service providers to give their perspectives on how they lobby current EU policy initiatives and regulations regarding social problems. Finally, authors discuss the state of the art in selected European countries and the question of how social work politics in Europe could be strengthened. The volume concludes with concrete examples of participation and career opportunities in European social policy for students and graduates of social work. 

Building Social Work Politics in Europe: Research Approaches, Practices, and Perspectives is a useful and timely text for students of social work at all levels (BA, MA, third cycle), schools of social work, universities of applied sciences with social work study programs, practitioners and executive management of organized social work and social service provision internationally and in Europe in particular.

Katrin Toens, Prof. Dr. habil., studied political science at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, and at Fordham University in New York City, USA. After obtaining her doctorate in 1999 with a thesis on workfare reforms in the USA and in Germany, she assisted at the German Foundation of International Development in Berlin. In 2002 she continued her academic career as an Assistant Professor at the University of Hamburg, Department of Political Science. In 2012 she received a post-doctoral degree ("Habilitation"). Since 2011 she works as a Professor of Political Science in the Department of Social Work at the Protestant University of Applied Sciences Freiburg, Germany, where she is head of the Master’s Degree Program in Social Work. Her teaching and research include social work relevant topics of policy analysis, European integration, and the politics of interest representation. 

Günter Rieger, Prof. Dr., is a qualified social worker (Dipl. Soz. päd. (BA)) with many years of experience in the fields of probation, case work with criminal offenders and persons with mental health problems. He is also a qualified political scientist (MA and PhD) with a specialization in welfare policy. After completing his PhD in 1998, he took up the post of Professor of Social Work and Politics at Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University in Stuttgart, Germany (formerly Berufsakademie Stuttgart) in 1999. From 2008 to 2015, he was Dean of the Faculty of Social Work, and since 2008, he has been Head of the Department of Forensic Social Work. He has published books and many articles in the field of social work policy and politics.