We must express social work knowledge and understanding so that it is open to interpretation into other cultures

The International social work conference in the summer led to a lot of material on international socila work appearing in the Guardian; one article by a Flemish academic, Joke Knockaert, discusses some of the issues, referring to a Flemish government policy 'Brains on the move', which wants to ensure that one in three Flemish students gets international experience.

But as Gurid Aga Askeland and I argue in our book and articles about globalisation and social work education, it is a naive expectation to think that 'travel broadens the mind' is an appropriate policy in a profession which is partly constructed by policy and legal developments in countries and the cultural expectations in both countries and ethnic and cultural groups.  We have to work hard at expressing our research and understanding in terms that are open enough so that it can be interpreted by people from other cultures into knowledge and understanding that is relevant to them.

Link to Guardian article

Don't borrow the latest buzz-policy: fit policy development to local culture and needs

Another post with my thoughts on issues raised by the new Spanish social work journal, Azarbe.

Some issues are experienced across the world, but are policy and service developments too ready to cull the answers from what's going on alsewhere rather than developing something that relates to their own culture and situation.

One article focuses on how social work methods are evolving to enable service users to be more participative, a policy that is exerting an unthinking tyranny across the world, but is this really the most important issue in practice development? Another is about case management to improve health and social care integration, but should how we work on the issues that individuals face be the vehicle for coordinating different professional aspirations and ideologies? Every country and culture should think about what fits its needs, not just adopt the current buzz-policy from somewhere else.