Riccardo Guidi – författare

Despite their long history and growing influence, social work professional organisations (SWPOs) remain underexplored in social work research. Created and fully or partly governed by professionals for professionals, SWPOs comprise millions of practitioners worldwide – some groups having existed for around 100 years – to develop activities that are increasingly relevant for practitioners, users, schools of social work and policy makers.This edited volume provides the first comprehensive, comparative analysis of SWPOs in 15 countries, bridging Global North and South perspectives. Using an interdisciplinary framework, it offers an evidence-based typology of SWPOs, illustrating their evolving role as collective actors in social work. Essential reading for educators, researchers and students in social work, this book speaks directly to the global community of SWPOs.

For a long time, volunteering lacked standardized data sets allowing methodologically robust comparative analyses and global policy making. Starting from 2011, the International Labour Office (ILO) and the United Nations (UN) have provided global statistical standards for organization-based and direct volunteering which offer path-breaking opportunities.The global statistical standards on volunteering are however only relatively known. They also have to face difficult methodological and substantial challenges: Can they really account for the local varieties of volunteering in the different areas of the world? Does their adoption further develop our knowledge of volunteering both at national and international level?Beyond illustrating which innovations these statistical standards bring and critically assessing the tensions between the global guidelines and the local differences, the book shows how the ILO and the UN standards can be implemented into national statisticsand which advancements in the understanding of characters, antecedents and impacts of contemporary organization-based and direct volunteering they allow. The Volume takes Italy as an illustrative case that offers global value.This multidisciplinary book demonstrates that a holistic approach to the implementation of the ILO and UN guidelines permits to virtuously balance international statistical standards and locally embedded cultures as well as to move knowledge of volunteering forward in a complexity-driven agenda. The book provides tools, evidences and inspiration for scholars, statistical agencies, practitioners and policy-makers.

For a long time, volunteering lacked standardized data sets allowing methodologically robust comparative analyses and global policy making. Starting from 2011, the International Labour Office (ILO) and the United Nations (UN) have provided global statistical standards for organization-based and direct volunteering which offer path-breaking opportunities.The global statistical standards on volunteering are however only relatively known. They also have to face difficult methodological and substantial challenges: Can they really account for the local varieties of volunteering in the different areas of the world? Does their adoption further develop our knowledge of volunteering both at national and international level?Beyond illustrating which innovations these statistical standards bring and critically assessing the tensions between the global guidelines and the local differences, the book shows how the ILO and the UN standards can be implemented into national statisticsand which advancements in the understanding of characters, antecedents and impacts of contemporary organization-based and direct volunteering they allow. The Volume takes Italy as an illustrative case that offers global value.This multidisciplinary book demonstrates that a holistic approach to the implementation of the ILO and UN guidelines permits to virtuously balance international statistical standards and locally embedded cultures as well as to move knowledge of volunteering forward in a complexity-driven agenda. The book provides tools, evidences and inspiration for scholars, statistical agencies, practitioners and policy-makers.

This book offers unprecedented knowledge about how social work practice education has been restructured under the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and how the adaptations and innovations generated during this time have become a supplementary tool of current social work education worldwide. Based on the European research project "SWooPEd – Social Work Practice Education in Times of Pandemics, and Beyond. Continuities, Changes and Innovations in Europe", this contributed volume provides a unique international perspective from different European countries that are accomplished through insights from authors in other continents.The book addresses topics through a 'glocal' approach, using a comparative perspective and a multi-method design. It adopts the IASSW-IFSW "Global Standards for Social Work Education and Training", as well as considers the heterogeneity of national social work education systems in Europe, North America, Africa, and the Asia and Pacific region. The volume's contents are organized in three sections:In Part I, the authors compare the structures and designs of social work practice education programs and the reactions of the schools of social work to the COVID-19-related restrictive measures on a European level.In Part II, the authors provide in-depth analyses on how the pandemic experimentations have been re-adapted and used in some European countries and which innovations and findings were identified that could be integrated now and in the context of other crises.In Part III, the authors contextualize these experiences and display the paths and analyses from schools in non-European countries, as well as finally identify the crucial current challenges and opportunities for social work practice education at a global level.Social Work Practice Education Beyond the Pandemic is a key reference for the global community of social work education including academics, educators, field instructors, practitioners, and students. It provides an inspiring source for all the innovators in the field of higher education in social work and highlights how social work practice education can be designed in a more resilient and sustainable way that directs social work practice education into the future.