What Makes Social Work a Global Profession?

Welcome back to the Social Work Café blog, where this week we go global!

In Episode 18, I was joined by the amazing Dr. Sebastian Cordoba, an academic at RMIT.

He is passionate about all things macro, especially policy and structural social work practice, and you will hear and feel his passion in this episode.

Sebastian begins our conversation by talking about his personal background, growing up in Uruguay under a military dictatorship and then migrating to Australia in the 1980s during a key time of transition to democracy.

Growing up in a politically active family that reflects many South American cultures that focus on collective action was interesting to learn about.

These contexts certainly informed his journey into social work and his ongoing passion for macro-based work, especially policy.

I’m not surprised that Sebastian works with the International Federation of Social Workers, which he explains is our global association tasked with representing social work, especially through the development of the global definition of social work as well as the global social work statement of ethical principles.

Sebastian then goes into detail about the platforms that the IFSW sustains so that social workers across the globe can collectively pursue goals of social justice and human rights.

For example, he is part of the IFSW United Nations (UN) Commission, which is made up of representatives across each IFSW region (Asia-Pacific, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and North America).

Sebastian explains how he works with representatives within the Asia-Pacific region.

It is the most populated region, and yet many of these countries do not have social protections.

The IFSW UN Commission regularly meets to coordinate members for policy practice within the UN system.

They are often writing submissions and advocating for action and measures of accountability for member states, especially in relation to climate change and global initiatives like the Sustainable Development Goals.

While this is incredibly fascinating work, Sebastian speaks well to the challenges of macro-practice within global systems, as change can often be very slow and there can be a whole range of ethical dilemmas along the way, such as debating whether to work with authoritarian regimes (e.g., the Taliban in Afghanistan).

Through his work on the commission, Sebastian gets to see social work across diverse contexts while also witnessing the commonalities that bring us all together, which he explains centre around our core values of social justice and human rights.

These points reflect a heap of literature that has looked at what it means for social work to be localised in various countries while finding the commonalities that bring us all together.

However, Sebastian reminds us that social work itself is a “tension-filled space” (I love that statement), and we must critically examine power dynamics in relation to who often gets to define social work, whose voices are most likely to be elevated, and whose are missing?

To get a sense of these tensions, check out this article about the IFSW global definition.

Sebastian gives some great advice for anyone who is interested in this type of macro-based work, such as:

·         Be passionate

·         Do policy subjects, do submissions to government, and help Sebastian out by recruiting others into the macro space!

·         Move into macro roles, including policy work at major non-government organisations that represent specific groups.

·         Develop your direct practice skills because these can transfer directly into policy work (there is more writing but fewer references!).

I also recommend that you sign up for the free IFSW email updates.

Considering everything we talked about, I was very keen to hear Sebastian’s definition of social work, and he came prepared with the following gem from his school social work days:

Social work is a profession that works in partnership with people to address social and emotional wellbeing and, in doing so, challenges barriers and inequalities.

I think this definition captures everything about social work.

I appreciate how Sebastian explains that he would contextualise the definition depending on the circumstances.

We also both agreed that while defining social work overall is not easy and will continue to evolve, every social worker should be able to clearly define their current role.

I think that is a great challenge to leave things on.

Stay global social work.

Dr. B