‘The creativity and determination of social workers in the face of funding cuts, salary reductions and the growing stigmatisation of poor and disabled people was evident at the biennial conference of the European Network for Social Action in Istanbul in April 2013’, reports David N Jones, the IFSW President’s Special Representative on the Global Agenda writing in The Guardian newspaper.
The conference also saw the launch of the European Observatory on Social Work and Social Development which is calling for evidence about the state of social work and social development in Europe. The theme for the first observatory report is promoting social and economic equalities, also the theme for World Social Work Days in March 2013 and 2014.
The European Observatory is the first of the regional Observatories to be launched. Each region will contribute to the global report being prepared by the Global Observatory for the 2014 world conference in Melbourne.
Read ‘Compiling an international picture of the state of social work’ by David N Jones here.