Monday
The main
theme of the day was immigration and its effects on culture. The first lecture,
“Transnational social work and transcultural perspectives”, was provided by
Juri Killian from the University of Kassel, Germany. Killian analyzed the
meaning of identity and the importance of understanding the dynamicity of
cultures. Killian’s lecture raised many questions among students. An
interesting point was how social surroundings, after all, play an important
role in affecting people becoming radical. We, as social workers, must
reconsider if there is room for demonization and ponder how we can truly relate
to social change.
The German
students held a presentation about unaccompanied refugee minors (URM) in
Germany. The students discussed the reasons why there are URM’s ( = people who
are under 18 years of age, who are outside their country of origin and who are
separated from both of their parents or their previous legal caregiver) and how
they are taken care of in the various states of Germany. Furthermore, the
students told us what kind of projects there are in Germany for the URM’s, for
example regarding their living situation, education and language. Because of
their geographical position, some states are more concerned with refugee
situations without enough resources to deal with the issue. Are we lucky in
Finland while our country isn’t the first place for example for the African
boat refugees to go to? Can we just decide to close our borders from any
inconvenient occasions? Another case to reflect is the gender issue among the
URM’s. Because most of the URM’s are boys, what happens to the girls?
In the
presentations of Serbia, Switzerland and Russia, the students considered the
implementation of social work in their home country. We discovered similarities
of doing and studying social work in different countries. However, it is not
the similarities but the differences between the countries we should learn more
about. One goal of the summer school was to review our system from other
perspectives. Learning how social issues are confronted within other countries
and comparing it to our way of operating with them, is a step towards it.
Professor
Julie Cooper from the California State University discussed self-criticism in
social work practice. Cooper asked if the self-criticism is always a negative
issue or could it be constructive or helpful, especially when it comes to the
contemporary social work practice. She has been working in the field of social
work for 30 years which is, in our opinion, a long time considering the
demanding and challenging nature of social work practice. She has found self-criticism,
working with young students and openness for new ideas important for herself.
While the world around us changes all the time, it is needed to modify our
understanding about society and social issues, too. That is a valid thing to
remember in our social work career.
The students
from the USA gave a wide image of what the social work can be like in the USA.
The insurance based health care system and investing in prisons instead of
education gives a harsh image of the social politics and the society. It seems
like there’s a huge and long lasting need for social workers. Even though the
student panel focused on things that need to be paid attention to and brought the
flaws of the society to light, the students somehow created a very positive
atmosphere in the lecture room. What we learned from the USA students was that the
realization of social work greatly differs between countries. Being Finns felt
relieving because in the USA, for generating even a little progress in the
society, social workers have to work extremely hard. Nevertheless, what
connects us social workers across the world is the shared duty of keeping up
hope for a better life and better tomorrow. Even if it sounds cliché.
Despite the
hunger and too-much-caffeine-head-ache we managed, in the workshop groups, to
compare the immigration policies and services of our countries. It was
surprising to figure out that in some countries there’s no policy concerning social
work’s role in migration at all even if it is a big issue. We found the Finnish
number of asylum seekers ridiculously small compared with the other European
countries or countries outside of the Europe. It was such an interesting learning experience
to be in a room with at least six different nationalities and to hear each of
their opinion about migration and some aspects regarding cultural changes. The
raising multiculturalism and how cultural diversity affects our societies are
the questions to ponder in contemporary social work.
- Helena
Rajalahti & Taru Le Flock, University of Lapland, Finland
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