Prof.in Dr.in Katrin Toens

2018 – 2022: “Making Social Work Politics in Europe” (in cooperation with the European Association of Schools of Social Work, EASSW)

The profession of social work, its representative bodies are in numerous ways involved in European politics, whether as members of social NGOs, participants in the human rights agenda of the Council of Europe or as informants and profiteers of the interest representation and advocacy of social service providers and churches vis-à-vis the European Union. Social work is also affected by EU regulations, coordination, funding and jurisdiction in relevant policy fields, such as social policy, refugee politics, humanitarian aid, and development cooperation. Even though the impact of the EU is mediated by single nation states and thus varies across countries, it has increased with policy regulations in conjunction with the Euro debt crisis, the Schengen crisis, as well as the recent immigration movement to Europe. However, there is yet no systematic and practice based reflection on the issues of how current political activities in the EU and beyond are social work driven, affect social work, and give reason for an even deeper involvement of organized social work in European politics.

Against this background it is our effort to push a more proactive and offensive debate on a European political mandate. How precisely is organized social work already involved in Eu-ropean politics, why exactly should it become even more active in a European political con-text, and how could social workers be trained to meet the current challenges of a common European political agenda? Based on a structured dialogue between professors, students of social work, social workers, policy makers and influencers of European politics we tackle these issues from the following perspectives. First we discuss the political mandate of social work and how it applies to the EU polity sui generis as well as to the pan-European institu-tional settings of the Council of Europe. This will establish a theoretical frame of reference for the successive overview over the state of the art and future perspectives of organized social work in Europe. Second, we asked policy staff of social NGOs, human rights organiza-tions, churches and social service providers to give us their perspectives on how they lobby current EU policy initiatives and regulations with regard to social problems. Topics are pov-erty and social exclusion in European countries, a malfunctioning European refugee policy regime, and the growing North-South divide on a global level. Other empirical points of ref-erence are the European Pillar of Social Rights, the role of European jurisdiction, and the is-sue of who represents the interests of extremely vulnerable target groups (e.g. people in debt, drug consumers, and the long term unemployed).

Finally, we focus on schools of social work and how they can contribute to the building of European social work politics. Based on research on the career perspectives of European policy actors with a social work background we reflect on the question of how schools of social work can adapt curricular reform to the knowledge transfer, political competencies and training students of social work need to succeed as professionals in European social work politics. In summary we suggest first steps towards a European research agenda for the enhancements of European social work politics.

2017 – 2020: „Innovation und Legitimation in der Migrationspolitik“ (zusammen mit Prof.in Dr.in Roswitha Pioch, in Kooperation mit der Fachhochschule Kiel, dem Arbeitskreis Migrationspolitik der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaft, der Sektion Politik Sozialer Arbeit in der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziale Arbeit und der Schader-Stiftung) https://www.schader-stiftung.de/veranstaltungen/aktuell/artikel/innovation-und-legitimationsprobleme-in-der-aktuellen-migrationspolitik-ein-wissenschaftsdialog-zw/ Ergebnisse s. unter „Veröffentlichungen“)

2016-2019: „Schwache Interessen? Politische Partizipation und Repräsentation in der Sozialen Arbeit“ (zusammen mit Prof. Dr. Benjamin Benz, in Kooperation zwischen der Evangelischen Hochschule RWL, der Evangelischen Hochschule Freiburg, der Sektion Politik Sozialer Arbeit in der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziale Arbeit und der Schader-Stiftung) (https://www.schader-stiftung.de/veranstaltungen/archiv/artikel/schwache-interessen-ein-blick-in-die-deutsche-wirklichkeit/, Ergebnisse s. unter „Veröffentlichungen“)

06/2016-10/2016: Studie „Bedarfe von Menschen mit Fluchterfahrung in Freiburg“ Projektleitung: Isolde Geissler-Frank und Katrin Toens, Projektkoordination und -umsetzung: Anna Fünfgeld