Social work in Sweden

1
Social work in Sweden

• EUSW Listening conference in Göteborg 2007-04-26
• Staffan Höjer

2
What is social work in Sweden - practice

• 30.000 practitioners, 95 percent within
  municipalities,less than 1,5 percent in full
  time, private practice.
• A very heterogenic activity.Child welfare, social
  care, drug and alcohol treatment, social
  assistance, and much more - often individual or
  family oriented.
• Most social workers are affiliated with a social
  work union, Ethical guidelines.
• An authorization system (however only 13 percent)

3
What is social work in Sweden - education

• BSW education at 12 universities
• MSW since 1980s, however not so many
  practitioners have one, 7 percent
• Social work is a university subject, several
  theory attempts
• Integration with Social Care - a joint exam.

4
What is social work in Sweden - research

• Early country in Europe with research education
  in Social work
• 1980-2006 204 Doctoral dissertations in Social
  work, also growth in senior research
• A research community, more professors, a
  reputational control system,
• Four scientific journals in social work
• Pluralism when it comes to research areas,
  theories and research methods

5
Social work a success story?

• Practice is getting larger. More and more work
  areas. More social workers are being educated
• Education is very popular. It take high grades to
  enter the social work education.
• Research was rated high recently, even compared
  to sociology and economics

6
However - a long way to go for research?

• Full professors, PhDs per year and doctoral
  students per 1000 professional practitioners in
  social work, medicine, education and psychology
  in Sweden 1999.
• Med. Psych.Educ. SW _________________________
  _____________
• Professors 17.8 6.2 0.2 0.4
• PhDs/year 19.6 5.6 0.3 0.4
• PhD students 126.9 52.4 4.1 5.3

7
Social work education is always questioned

• Many claim the BSW is too short and try to cover
  too much - the generalist / specialist dilemma
• Social work students know too little about .
  everything
• Less than 10 percent of social workers have a
  masters in social work

8
Social work practice -

• The position of service users is weak (according
  to critical cases/scandals)
• EBP is questioned - for many reasons
• Not prepared to deal with elderly population,
  ethnic diversity issues,psychiatry diagnoses etc.
• Privatisation - both a threat and a possibility

9
Future challenges

• Learn more from Europe!
• Bologna-declaration, change in education system -
  perhaps more with masters degree
• Discuss and listen more to the situation for
  service users
• Need a certification system in order to demand
  expertise and responsibility from social workers