The aim is to develop the competences of social educators that are useful for improving the empowerment of families of disabled persons, in a way that is both innovative and inspiring. The project intends to concretize the process of strengthening and self-awareness of families in line with the document "Implementation guidelines E + and ESC Inclusion and Diversity Strategy" - to overcome social or other difficulties and thus make them fully participate in social life of the EU.  

  Social work in health is historically associated with a role in health care access, community support and humanization of services. Health care organizations, policy makers and clinicians have developed quality indicators in health care organizations as a premise to higher quality standards in health care. The intervention of social workers extends beyond medical, nursing, education, rehabilitation, and social care services", but also requires attention to be given to the quality of care practices, which includes the delivery of care services at a granular level alongside their organization (mezzo) and their development (macro). In addition, contemporary health care requires new technological advances, to ensure that are delivered in a way that recognizes the need of individuals, but also address inter- and transdisciplinary dimensions. Recent years have seen increasing integration of health and social work systems requiring skilled practitioners able to navigate this technological world. This proposal aims to respond to these challenges, developing a future Erasmus Mundus Master Programme on Social Work in Health. The consortium is composed by Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon (Portugal, Coord), University of Valencia (Spain),  Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland/University of Medicine and Health Sciences (Ireland), and Robert Gordon University, Scotland (United Kingdom). The aim is to develop an educational master programme, focusing the development of theoretical, methodological, and instrumental skills in students to work in health and care at micro, mezzo and macro level in the context of public health, policy, leadership, management and evaluation. We seek develop a 2nd cycle programme that meets the demands of today's society, highly marked by digital transition, sustainability and new epidemics that affect the health and well-being of every citizen.   The future Master program will be an innovative bet, combining specialized training to promote le...

  Social Service in the health area emerges related to a historical context in the access to health care, in the differentiation and humanisation of services. Social workers "working in health are sophisticated, flexible and pragmatic specialists, oriented towards teamwork and focused on the sick person" (Gregorian, 2005: 14). The clinical and social intervention are integrated together, which allows us to see the person as a whole and not as a sum of parts, which "requires a multidimensional assessment of the person at different levels: the aspects of the illness, the behaviour of the user, the social, family and cultural context of the sick person, and the health system itself" (Smith & Nicassio, 1995, cited by Pereira, 2001:3). The need for the "development and implementation of integrated care processes, which include (...) well-defined indicators, aimed at ensuring (...) the professionals' actions are defined and parameterised (...) with a view to innovation, organisational modernisation and the development of professionals' specific skills (PNS 2012- 2016:8). For social workers, evaluation and measurement is inseparable from their practice, as it is required to classify and identify undesirable practices, in determining the efficiency of social intervention, constituting a reliable and accurate basis for improving the quality of professional practices, with a positive impact on improving people's quality of life, adding value to organisations and users. We intend to validate and provide a standardised Social Service model for health services, based on the implementation of quality indicators in this area of intervention based on equity, continuous improvement and standardisation of procedures in the professional practices of social workers.   PROJECT TEAM Inês Espírito-SantoJorge FerreiraPatrícia Barbosa

InovHumRe is a project financed by the Erasmus+ Programme – KA203 – Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education, aiming to improve the quality and effectiveness of Higher Education Institutes, improving the education of Humanitarian Action students and professionals, through the implementation, in the second cycle of social science courses, of a curricular unit for the evaluation in humanitarian action. This curricular unit will be based on innovative methodological approaches – participatory assessment in Humanitarian Action and will feature the development of new learning tools that incorporate the contributions of partner HEIs and NGOs directly involved in the humanitarian response, thus filling skill gaps. The project InovHumRe, will last for 30 months (31/12/2020 – 29/06/2023), is coordinated by Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon and has as partners, the following entities: – Instituto Marquês de Valle Flôr, Portugal – Hacettepe University, Turkey – Sened Dernegi, Turkey – Sosyal Hizmet Uzmanları Derneği (SHUDER), Turkey – National University of Distance Learning (UNED), Spain – Fundacíon Magtel, Spain – Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Brazil – Icesi University, Colombia

A sustainable social foundation for human life can only develop in an inherent interdependence with the overall ecological ceiling and regenerative economy. ASTRA paves the way for a radically new approach to tackle the major societal challenges faced with social work. This is done by combining transdisciplinary sustainability transition research, policies and practices in social work. The combination creates a novel scientific domain and establishes new transformative standards of social work doctoral training in Europe. Within this frame, the recruited Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) focus on the challenge of social inclusion of young people in precariousness situations as well as people with a migration background in vulnerable communities. In participatory research with the target groups, social work methods are co-created as steps of the transition towards sustainable and inclusive society. The potential of the following methodic models are investigated: naturebased well-being, environmental justice, circular and solidarity economy, sustainable food policies in vulnerable communities, ecosocial innovations and contributive justice. The practice-research methodology of social work is applied by the ASTRA consortium, which consists of leading European social work academics involved in sustainability transition research and two non-academic research organisations for environmental and economic sustainability. The diversity of the partner organisations working on sustainability transition in practice deepens the transdisciplinary approach. The innovative practice-related solutions and fundamentally new types of research-based knowledge will have a long-term impact not only on social work but on society and science at large. ASTRA offers the ESRs novel career perspectives in transdisciplinary research, cross-sectoral policy-making and new economic models at the local, national and European level.

T@sk aims at reinforcing and modernizing the delivery of Social Services in Albania by empowering the Albanian Higher Education System. The aims of T@sk projects are essential for the development  of the Albanian Social Work system, for its modernization and its alignment to the European standards of the Social Services delivery. T@sk project can count on the long lasting  expertise of the University of Florence, the Complutense University of Madrid, the Instituto Universitário of Lisbon and the Ordine degli Assistenti Sociali of the Tuscany Region in the field of Social Work organization and evaluation. The cooperation among the European Union partners and the Albanian Universities will create the ideal ground to reach increased competences of Albanian Higher Education staff, a growing self-empowerment of Albanian social workers and therefore the improvement of the Social Services. Members of T@sk project agree in a subsidiary and multilevel approach based on: In depth theoretical and methodological updating of the University staff of all the Albanian public Universities offering Bachelor  Master Degrees in Social Work: University of Tiran, University of Elbasan, University of Shkodër. Wide inclusion of the Albanian Social Workers and Albanian local institutions in the identification of the needs of the Albanian Social Services. Theoretical and empirical focus on the specific areas of deprived children and disadvantaged women within the general framework of deviance prevention and mitigation of detention conditions.

1. The overall aim of this project will be to develop new skills, competencies, training products & methodologies to enable social workers and other professionals to innovate and adopt more effective interventions in working with families experiencing multiple and complex difficulties.  It supports EU education policy objectives; the Bruges Communique on enhanced European cooperation in VET for 2011-20 identified the need for "Creativity and Innovation in VET as well as the use of innovative learning methods" and called for multi disciplinary partnerships to promote "new developments and competence needs and to develop professional excellence and innovation".  The Paris declaration of education ministers of 17th March 2015 called for action to reinforce the role of education in promoting citizenship and strengthening social cohesion.  The project will support both horizontal and VET specific priorities of the Erasmus+ Programme by seeking to develop key transversal competencies in the VET curriculum and by enhancing access to these through the use of CVET and ECVET.   2. The need & rationale for the project was initially identified through the work of a major research study undertaken by the Municipality of Linkoping R&D Centre Care and Social Work in Sweden in collaboration with the NTNU, Trondheim, Child Welfare Research and Innovation Centre in Norway (Families & Social Services, R&D rep 68:2012 www.linkoping.se/fou and The new child welfare, NF report 6/2015 www.nordlandsforskning.no) which focussed on more than 900 vulnerable families (150 with complex needs) using child welfare services, in both countries.  The study found that despite a considerable investment of resources, there had been relatively little change in the situation of these families over time.  Professionals from a wide range of services (eg social work/child welfare, mental health, social security, education etc) often intervened simultaneously addressing individual probl...

The particular needs s of social work students in adult or continuing education have not been addressed at European level, although increasing number of students are studying social work besides working in the field. The ALLISW network will undertake significant steps in developing professional education of social work offered as adult studies according to the concept of Life-Long-Learning. This calls for particular pedagogical solutions and also opens new options for direct practice research.The concrete aim of the ALLISW is to develop international learning options for MA-level adult students in work-and-study situation to match their particular situation.

This project consists of an research in Social Work, about the child protection system in Portugal, in the context of the European Union. It seeks to analyze the social problem of children in deprotection situations, the competencies of the local Commissions for the Protection of Children and the methodologies of intervention of the Social Work.For this, theoretical knowledge, methodological procedures and ethics that support the professional practice are systematized. Complexities, limits, conditions and possibilities of intervention of the social worker are discussed in the social, legal and political dimensions, based on the following objectives:- Identify the models of protection and social welfare oriented towards children in Portugal considering the European context;- Analyze the social dimension of protection and social welfare models and their specific guidelines for the organization of social responses addressed to children, with particular emphasis on the Commissions for the Protection of Children and Young People;- To typify the role of social workers in their conceptual, operational and axiological dimensions, within the scope of the specific competences in the context of the Commissions; - To systematize the theoretical-methodological, technical-operative and ethical-political references of intervention of the social workers;- Establish the relationship between social needs and social responses to child protection in the context of protection and welfare models in Portugal.In this discussion, the relationship between Social Work and welfare models for children presents potentialities in the field of research and debate in the public space for the improvement of child protection in contemporary societies.From a methodological point of view, this research integrates several procedures, such as documentary analysis and an online questionnaire, to be applied to the Commissions for the Protection of Children and Young People at the national level that integr...

One of the major concerns that the contemporary brings to training is the need of its relationship with the labour market. In social work this articulation is assumed not only as a mere adaptation of the training matrix to the demands of the labor market, but it means, above all, a directive in the formulation of its professional project.  Based on this assumption, we started this research project which intends to assess the perceptions of finalist’s students of Social Work (undergraduate) regarding the suitability of their training to the needs and challenges that professionals face in their professional practice. Also intends to assess their perceptions about the theoretical-methodological and technical-instrumental skills acquired during the years of training and students degree of satisfaction with it.

This project aims to examine the role of civil society in supporting vulnerable members of the community within the context of social welfare reform, neoliberal policy and new public management initiatives. Pressures of marketization, austerity and statutory intervention are challenging policies to reducing poverty, social inequality and social exclusion and promoting social cohesion and developing social capital. The project involves EU and associated countries that are undergoing significant social and economic change, namely England, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey, whilst non EU countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are newly advanced economic development countries. The project will enhance the understanding and knowledge based models of global sustainable social welfare service delivery.