October 11-13, 2019
Congress Theme:
Social Care and Social Wellbeing
Challenges and Opportunities for Social Work Profession
At Department of Social Work, University of Lucknow
Jointly organised by
National Association of Professional Social Workers in India (NAPSWI)
&
UGC’s Centre for Advanced Studies in Social Work
Department of Social Work, University of Lucknow
The theme of 7th ISWC 2019 is ‘Social Care and Social Wellbeing: Challenges and Opportunities for Social Work Profession’. The theme has emerged from the Indian perspective that society is the extension of individuals and all the components related to individual and society function not in isolation or independent manner but inter-connected and mutual supportive system leading to continuous interaction between individual and society. Social care and social wellbeing are very near to the profession of social work which is primarily concerned with supporting and helping people in a variety of situations and settings, works in solidarity with socially excluded people and groups in meeting the challenges that their social exclusion creates. Social workers work in wide range of settings and with different groups of people that include individuals, families, groups and communities; perform wide variety of roles including counseling, group work, lobbying, advocacy as well as political activism having network with other professionals such as doctors, public health workers, school teachers, advocates, social service providers and social activists, fulfilling the aim to support people to live more successfully within their local communities by helping them to find solutions to their problems.
Social care plans and provides professional individual or group care to clients with personal and social needs. Client groups are varied which include children, adolescents, young people, intellectually or physically disabled, homeless, alcohol/drug dependents, families in community, older people, women etc. Social care strives to support, protect, guide and advocate on behalf of clients; bases on interpersonal relationships requiring empathy, strong communication skills, self-awareness and an ability to critical reflection; is guided through core principles of human rights, social justice and empowerment of clients to achieve their full potential. Team work and interdisciplinary work are vital in social care.
Social wellbeing has been described from the perspective of the self (of individuals), this is most often referred to as subjective wellbeing which is a long standing social scientific concept that captures how people evaluate their lives and it has been shown to be related to both affective state (the emotional state in a particular moment) and affective disposition (the pre-disposition to a particular affective state over a period of time). Social wellbeing consists of five social dimensions which include social acceptance (accepting others as they are), social actualization (positive comfort level with society), social contribution (a feeling that one has a contribution to make to society), social coherence (understanding the social world as predictable comprehensible) and social integration (feeling as a part of the community).
In order to meet the avowed objectives of social care and social wellbeing of individual, groups, families and communities, social work profession has have to possess effective knowledge and practice skills. In such a context, it is a natural aspiration from the Indian Social Work Congress to play a meaningful role in understanding, analyzing and interpreting the dimensions, areas, challenges and opportunities with regard to social care and social wellbeing. These concepts need to be examined in the context of the global action on poverty and inequalities, SDGs, Social protection, Climate change, empowering process for different groups and so on. Thus, the 7th Indian Social Work Congress is committed to provide a dynamic platform to discuss and deliberate on how the profession of social work can engage itself in achieving the aforementioned objectives resulting into exploration of new vistas in transforming social work profession with notion of think globally and act locally.
Sub-Themes
The sub-themes are being proposed as frameworks for detailed deliberations under overall congress theme in order to present conceptual, empirical and interventional papers or posters for clarifying related concepts, potential responses, and strategic interventions having policy implications.
1. Social Care and Social Wellbeing: Evolution, Conceptual Analysis and Current Debates;
2. Social Care Services and Activities:
(a) Direct Services to Clients’ Interventions: Individual, Family, Group, Community and Work place Based; Assessment of Child and Family; Child, Youth and Elderly Management; Counseling and Life Skills Training; Health Education and Recreation; Stress Management.
(b) Organisational Behaviour, Climate and Development and Institutional Structures and Service;
