IFSW
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INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF SOCIALWORKERS
EUROPEAN REGION
DELEGATES MEETING
26-28 MAY 2006
European Conferences 2009
and beyond
Every second year one of the member organizations of the European
region takes on the task of organizing the regional social work
conference. This is in addition to the Global
Conference held the year before and the year after. In other words, IFSW organizes a major social
work conference every year.
Given all the other social work conferences organized around the
world (as evidenced by the list on the IFSW web site) the Delegate Meeting have
earlier years discussed what shall the IFSW policy on Conferences be?
The answer has been, with a few exceptions, to organize joint
conferences with sister organizations, although the frame for cooperation and
the partners has varied over the years.
The
past conferences have in general terms all been successful, gathering a good
number of social workers from all parts of
Still it is asked again and again:
→
Who shall be the participants? Who have the funds to take part? Is
practitioners outnumbered by academics?
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How shall the profile for the presenters be? Plenaries?
Workshops?
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Which standard is adequate for the venue?
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Who has the capacity to organize? How to handle the financial risk
by organizing a conference? How does IFSW Europe overlook the conference planning?
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With whom shall we organize a joint conference and how often?
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How is IFSW Europe being promoted, if we are only one among 4-5
partners organizing the conference?
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Shall the conferences be an important part of the income
generating schemes for IFSW Europe and other organizing partners?
A common
strategy for the IFSW Europe Conferences may be needed in the future. But until
now we have practiced a decentralized regime on conferences, which means the
national organizers/partners decide the actual profile for the conference.
The Global level
has been trough the same process concerning conferences, and some of their
results are being looked upon by the Executive and our organizing partners.
Cooperation with
our partners has developed (referring to item 6.6), this include more formal
agreements, also concerning joint conferences. For the conferences in 2003,
2005 and 2007 the partnership contract was not in place before late in the
process.
For 2009 we want
this different. The Executive Committee has therefore started a dialogue with
the potential European partners for the 2009 Conference.
We have agreed
with the ENSA partners that we aim to hold regular joint conference in the
future. That we by the end of 2006 will have developed a plan on how we will organize
it; a joint framework including how often, decisions on hosts/venue, content
and financial issues, as well as how to share responsibilities. We need
feedback from the Delegate Meeting on this, and also we will look at the Global
agreement between IFSW, IASSW and ICSW.
The first joint
conference in this partnership shall be in 2009.
At this Delegate
Meeting we look for bids and consider
proposals from member organizations wanting to host the 2009 Conference.
Aiming at having this event in joint partnership the Delegate Meeting are not
able to make a formal decision, but can give their recommendations to the
Executive Committee, as they will have to negotiate with the other partners.
The hosts for 2009 must be in place ahead of the 2007 Parma Conference.