Conferences

World Social Work Day 2013

This event was held at Westminster to celebrate World Social Work Day.

  • Speakers included Bridget Robb (Interim Chief Executive of the British Association of Social Workers) and Hilary Tompsett (Chair of the Joint Universities Social Work Education Committee). On behalf of SWHIN, Kate made a presentation on the impact of social, economic and health inequalities and how these can be addressed by social workers in their practice.
  • David Jones (International Federation of Social Workers Immediate Past President & Global Agenda Coordinator) also spoke about the Global Agenda.
  • Richard Wilkinson, co-author of ‘The Spirit Level’ presented evidence from his book regarding the need to reduce inequalities, suggesting that social workers act as advocates to challenge the prejudiced and stigmatised views of people in poverty.
  • The event was one of a number, taking place nationally and internationally, to promote the Global Agenda for social work. This year’s theme was ‘promoting social and economic equality’. A full report of the event can also be found here: http://www.basw.co.uk/news/article/?id=475

The World Conference on Social Work and Social Development took place in Stockholm in July 2012. A number of SWHIN attended amongst the total of 2500 social workers, social work educators and social development professionals. A presentation from Professor Michael Marmot highlighted the important contribution made by social work to tackling health inequalities. His speech to the conference can be seen online at: http://swsd2012.creo.tv/tuesday/michael_marmot/d3p2-michael_marmot

European Conference for Social Work Research, March 23rd – 25th 2011, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford. http://www.ecswr.org/
An informal gathering over lunch was followed by a well-attended SWHIN symposium with presentations from Paul Bywaters, Varda Soskolne, Julie Fish and Sarah Donnelly. Most of the focus of the meeting was on sharing research interests with others, which was a catalyst for future contact and collaboration.

Sixth International Conference on Social Work in Health and Mental Health in Dublin 2010
Lindsey Napier, Convenor of the Social Work and Health Inequalities Network was a member of the Scientific Committee and a number of Network members gave papers. Paul Bywaters, Roeberta Ochoa, Estelle Rubinstein and Lindsey Napier gave a keynote presentation on the IFSW Policy: http://www.changinghealthdublin2010.com
Statement: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/healthatwarwick/research/devgroups/socialwork/swhin/activities/ifsw.mp4

Joint World Conference on Social Work and Social Development: The Agenda, Hong Kong, China, 10th-15th June 2010
Paul Bywaters was involved in the development work for this first joint conference of the International Federation of Social Workers, the International Association of Schools of Social Work and the International Council on Social Welfare. A number of Network members were present and gave papers. For more details see: www.swsd2010.org.

IFSW Congress, Salvador, Brazil 2008
Lindsey Napier and Paul Bywaters presented the draft IFSW Policy on Health to the IFSW General Meeting and gave papers at the conference.

International Association of Schools of Social Work Congress in Durban – 2008
Ros Giles led the Network’s presence at this conference, and a number of members attended and gave presentations.
Fifth International Conference on Social Work in Health and Mental Health in Hong Kong 2006 http://www.swh2006.com/en/index.html
Members led themes and gave papers.

IFSW Congress Munich, Germany 2006
The Network was asked to lead a major theme on Health at the 50th Anniversary Conference of the founding of the International Federation of Social Workers conference in Munich in July/August. There was a major plenary session on health inequalities led by members of the Network (Paul Bywaters, Lindsey Napier, Vimla Nadkarni, Stephen Rose, Vishanthie Sewpaul) followed by a workshop in which the issues raised were discussed in more depth. A number of other members also gave papers at the conference.