Rethinking social work education in the context of Nordic welfare state: a collaborative perspective

Social work are influenced by the development of increased individualization, standardization, and evidentialization in service provisions. At the same time external societal changes and recent crises have created new needs for social work intervention. In this article, we address whether a collaborative approach to social work can strengthen the discipline’s capacity to respond to these changes. We embed our discussions in two concrete practice fields in social work: the integration of migrants and refugees and the youth work. The changes in these practice fields demonstrate the increasing need for collaboration with the greater involvement of civil society and local communities. This addresses the need for mobilizing both public and civil society, demanding new roles for frontline social workers. Building on theoretical perspectives on co-creation, social innovation, and mobilization we argue for a collaborative approach in social work practice and education. This highlights the importance of individuals working together, sharing a common vision, co-creating, and mobilizing resources, liberating local knowledge, and increasing participants’ capabilities to act from a bottom- up perspective. Consequently, we argue for a need for rethinking social work education. We can not only tell students about collaborative approaches to social work; we need to give them opportunities to participate in and experience collaborative social work. This actualizes the tension and conflict of interest between social work education as individualized or collective-oriented, and between education in social work, and education for different social work services and practices.