Nord University is hosting the FORSA/NASSW conference in Bodø on June 14-16, 2023. The conference addresses important, pervasive, and unpredictable crises of our time. Crises change the condition of life and directly impact social work, representing both a challenge and an opportunity for new practices.
This special issue invites researchers attending the FORSA/NASSW conference to consider how social work practices have to change due to climate crises, pandemics, and war. Social work is a practice-based profession and academic discipline that promotes social change and development, social cohesion, and empowerment and liberation of people (Global definition, IASSW 2014). A holistic perspective is central to social work. At the same time, social work is practical work for people in specific situations.. Contexts include various social systems that people are embedded in, such as families, the community, and the service system. Contemporary crises challenge traditional distinctions between social life, the physical environment and the relationship between social problems and public health. There is a growing focus on tensions between challenges in social work and the welfare systems in the Nordic contexts and challenges for social work are increasingly unfolding across national borders. This special issue invites researchers to explore different forms of practice in social work within contemporary contexts.
All participants at the Nordic FORSA/NASSW conference 2023 are welcome to submit research contributions to this special issue.
