Three different group pictures in nature

Project Description & Goals

Social Work professionals face major challenges in dealing with contradicting imperatives and uncertain contexts, which are shaped by increasing economic differences, ecological, economic and health crises as well as various forms of group-related enmity and violent extremism. With increasing global crises, social work needs to expand its methodological repertoire and adapt its working and teaching practices accordingly. 

 

The project’s thematic focus is on the professional development of international social work (education), which, in view of global challenges, crises, wars, and disasters, has to be more international, culturally sensitive, conflict sensitive, and locally well anchored to suit the needs on the ground. This global awareness also includes a broadening of perspectives integrating sustainability as a major concept into the social work teaching practice. The ThRIvE project aims through implementing new teaching and learning formats to promote professional competences of students and to improve the general knowledge production and outreach of higher social work education. 

 

In order to strengthen crisis resilience and empower social workers, the project develops and implements teaching formats that, in addition to imparting knowledge, also aim at strengthening the students in their personal development and at the same time enable relationships to be formed between students from different cultures. A special focus is on mindfulness-practice, experience-based learning, and awareness-raising processes that strengthen future social workers in their self-reflection and promote their tolerance for ambiguity and emotional intelligence. On the other hand, the project aims to transform the social work education system in such a way that more participation and international networking are anchored in the curricula, while at the same time personal development and empowerment are accepted and integrated as core competences in higher education. 

 

With its measures, the project aims to achieve three main goals until 2025. 

The professional competences from students are supposed to improve through learning from experience-based, participatory teaching formats that are implemented through different project activities, such as practice projects, mobilities, workshops, internships, and symposia. The project team values the relevance of practical learning and therefore provides alternative teaching formats. The project is supposed to be a role model to achieve a sustainable change of the university curricula, to be able to prepare soon to be social workers as best as possible for the practical work in crisis. 

Social work is influenced and formed by past, present, and future crisis. Because social work sets a focus on individuals and communities, need professional social workers to constantly educate themselves further. Through the project, internal PhD-candidates and research projects (from team members) are supported and promoted with the aim that future social workers can also benefit from the knowledge production. As part of the symposia and other international events such as the human rights week in Würzburg, is the goal for the next years to establish new cooperation and to increase the project outreach. A larger network can achieve more change. 

Because of more global crisis and their impact, is it for professional social workers becoming more relevant to be confronted with practical interventions already during the studies, to later be able to combat discrimination, exclusion, and violent conflicts. Through the trinational cooperation, social work students in Lebanon, Jordan, and Germany get to know many different perspectives. Through the implementation of the project activities, the educational institutions of social work can be further internationalized over time. In addition, the relatively new programs of social work in Jordan and Lebanon will be promoted and consolidated through the cooperation.