CHECK IT OUT! APASWE No. 25

International Definition of Professional Social Work

The present IASSW/IFSW International Definition of Social Work will be revised. A proposal will be soon made by IASSW and IFSW boards to get feedback from all members. There will be two big differences from the present definition. The new one will be:

(1) Multi-layered: The new definition will be composed of two to four layers, the international, regional, national, and local levels. The international level definition will be short, easily translatable in words and meaning into other languages, understandable to non social work people, and define the uniqueness of social work. These were agreed by an IASSW-IFSW joint taskforce meeting in Stockholm.
(2) The definition of professional social work, not the definition of social work: The present definition has been titled as the definition of social work but what has been actually given is the definition of professional social work (The body begins with “social work profession promotes….”).

In the APASWE/IFSW(AP) 22nd Social Work Conference in Manila, a definition workshop will be held by the APASWE at 13:30-15:00 on 6 June. Please be prepared. Attached is the final proposal presented to the IASSW Los Angeles board meeting in January by the IASSW and IFSW taskforce chairs. There will be some changes in the last version to be submitted to you with Commentary.

Global Agenda

In March last year, three international social work organizations, IASSW, IFSW, and ICSW, jointly released Global Agenda. This document leads the social work community at the international level for the next several years. The observatory committee has been organized to follow up its implementation. The main theme of the coming 2014 IA/IF/IC tripartite world conference will be “Promoting Social and Economic Equalities”, that is, the first pillar of the Global Agenda, and the International Social Work (a Sage journal) will publish a special issue on this topic. Dr. Bala Raju Nikku, a board member of the APASWE, is planning to make a contribution to the issue and has requested APASWE members to cooperate the APASW members’ cooperation to his research. (See the attached.)