THE BREAKTHROUGH OF THE SOCIAL
Practical Utopias, Wisdom and Radical Transformations – Social Work
@IUC: Lessons Learned and Future Challenges
Dubrovnik 2nd – 6th September, 2019
The conference will celebrate 30 years of social work courses at the IUC in Dub

The conference will celebrate 30 years of social work courses at the IUC in Dubrovnik. It will address the state of the art in the theory and practice of social work, address new ways of formulating and implementing social policy, examine key challenges in working with children and families, explore new approaches to children in conflict with law, present possibilities of community work and community action, confront issues of old age and investigate the possibilities for and obstacles to deinstitutionalisation. The aim of the conference is to reassert the role of social work in societal change and to explore political, organisational and ethical issues through the lens of freedom and social transformation. To do so participants will revisit historical sources and envisage new pathways, possible functions and responsibilities of the profession in order to enrich utopias with practical purpose through (indigenous) wisdom and by reinvigorating the anti-oppressive mandate of social work. Social work needs to establish strong alternatives that are extremely important in the times of rising nationalisms, abrogation of human rights and decaying solidarity. These alternatives should use the tools and stories of social work in order to encourage and enable people to believe that another world is possible and work towards building it together. The conference itself will last three days. There will be fringe events (special workshops, interest groups etc.) prior and possibly after the conference.