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International Federation of Social Workers

IFSW Europe’s Annual report 2025

Information Type: ReportTopic: IFSW

Our Year in Numbers

Our members 2025

Welcome to IFSW Europe’s highlights from 2025

Please find here a short report of our activities and successes in 2025. Thanks to all our members and allies. Without the time and financial support of our 30 member associations we could not work for pan-European learning, solidarity and professional development for social work and social workers.

Thanks particularly to our  Representatives in European institutions and global commissions, to the New Social Workers Network, to project leads and contributors, and to participants in our many activities.

Our priorities throughout the year have been to:

  • Increase the value of IFSW Europe membership to associations.
  • Build our influence and shape the profession across the region.
  • Act as a supportive learning community, helping associations and social workers be resilient and thrive in good times and tough.

Our community of and for social workers cannot be taken for granted – particularly in this time of rising nationalistic regional and global politics and governments pulling back from internationalism. The importance of IFSW Europe standing up for international solidarity and common purpose in the social work  profession and in our wider societies feels particularly vital and motivates us for the coming year.

Member to member communication is essential for our community to develop. In 2026 we will provide better ways for members to network with each other and communicate with the IFSW Europe Secretariat. We need social work in Europe to be a movement for social change and a growing profession at international level – and shared communication and networking  is key.

Paid membership of IFSW Europe is strong at 30 associations from 28 countries out of a possible 50. In 2026  we will reach out and bring more members into our community


Delegates Meeting attendees – Oslo, October 2025

IFSW Europe is a legal body in its own right. We gain funding from regional membership fees, regional conferences, and non-membership sources. We are also a full and proud part of IFSW Global, adhering to global ethics, governance and aims. We meet once a year (in person and hybrid online) for our members’ Delegates’ Meeting where we make major decisions and set the budget.

In 2025 we reported that we had reached our European membership income target, benefitted from income as partners in a large scale EU funded research project (Responsive) and were delighted to have secured a grant from IFSW Global to take forward our 18 month project on inclusivity, accessibility and developing better support for all members  – Strengthening Social Work in Europe Through IFSW.

Throughout 2025 we worked closely with IFSW Global. The Europe President and Vice President were  active in the Global Executive, and along with our member from Denmark, Birthe Povlsen, we worked to progress the IFSW Global  ‘Good Governance’ review. This is delivering on Europe’s  motion at the 2024 General Meeting in Panama where Europe called for improved transparency and clearer processes in IFSW Global operations. This has been welcomed and embraced by the IFSW Global President, Secretariat and colleagues from all regions. A full report will come to the General Meeting in Nairobi.

A highlight of 2025 was the hugely successful and inspiring European conferences in Oslo and Alta, Norway, summarised below. You can also read a full write up here and summarised below.  Since then, we have started work with the Hellenic Association to shape  the 2027 European conference when we will be  in Athens, Greece!

With best wishes for 2026 from the IFSW Europe Executive!

IFSW Europe Executive January – Oct 2025

At our Executive meeting in Oslo, March 2025

Left to right: Front row: Kristine Evertz, Netherlands: Enric Torras, Austria; Ruth Allen (President), UK and France; Andreas Kikvik (Vice President), Norway. Back row and screen: Brian Auslander, Honorary Treasurer, Israel; Paola Ponterello (Deputy member), Italy; Lucia Gonzalez (Deputy member), Spain; Jill Childs, Honorary Secretary) UK; Susanne Both, Denmark.

Changes in the Executive following the Delegates Meeting in Oct 2025

  • Kristine Evertz stood down as full committee member for personal reasons in December 2025 and continues as a Deputy Executive
  • Nikos Zervas (Greece) was elected as first Deputy in October and has now stepped into the full Executive member role vacated by Kristine.
  • Enric Torras (full Committee Member) and Brian Auslander (Honorary Treasurer) were re-elected to their roles at the Delegates Meeting.
  • Paola Ponterello was re-elected as second Deputy Executive
  • Lucia Gonzalez stood down from the committee: thank you Lucia!

Nikos Zervas joined the Executive Committee in October as one of the key organisers of our 2027 Regional conference in Athens.

Nikos Zervas (left) and Olga Verikaki from the Hellenic Association on their journey home from announcing the 2027 conference in Greece at the Oslo 2025 conference.

Social Work Representation in European and Global Institutions 2025

IFSW Europe supports individual representatives to work within international organisations to bring the voice of social work and IFSW into the heart of European decision making. Representation has developed further this year thanks to the following colleagues who give their time freely and graciously. Their reports were shared with member associations at the Delegates Meeting in Oslo.

The Representatives – including now the Regional Commissioners in the global commissions,  and the New Social Workers and the Human Rights Networks – meet online four times a year to share progress and expertise in effective representation. Thanks to John Brennan (past  European Vice-President – Ireland)  Chair the meetings.

Europe Representatives in Global IFSW Commissions

IFSW Europe has been working with the Global Commissioners and the IFSW Global Secretariat to implement the new Commissions policy. This has included ensuring the regional commissioners and support teams are linked it with regional as well as global networking opportunities including the quarterly representatives meeting. At the end of 2025, representatives are:

  • UN (Geneva office https://www.ungeneva.org/en/about/who-we-are) Regional Commission Team–
    • IFSW Europe Main Representative in UN Geneva and Afghanistan women specialism – Sybille Mani, Switzerland
    • Co-Regional Commission Representative and Geneva Committee on Ageing (and related) – Gerry Nosowska, UK
    • Co-Regional Commission Representative and WHO in UM – Akudo Amadiegwu, UK
    • World Social Work Day – Swetha Raodhananka, Switzerland
    • UN Human Rights Office – Annalisa Baruffi, Switzerland, now UK
  • Education Regional Commissioner – Marcin Boryczko, Poland
  • Ethics Regional Commissioner – Gabriele Stark-Angermeier, Germany
    • Support team: Graca Andre Queiros, Portugal
  • Indigenous Regional Commissioner – Margaretha Uttjek, Sweden

If you want to contact any of the representatives or regional commissioners, please email

Speaking Out and Strengthening Social Work Across Europe

IFSW Europe’s representation in key institutions and organisations is particularly crucial in this period of turmoil and backsliding on human rights, inclusion and democracy ethos with the rise of authoritarianism, right-wing populism and military aggression in Europe and beyond.

Despite its many flaws and failures, the rules-based order in Europe of the last 70 years has provided a context for peace between nations in our region. It has given a collective European direction with regard to civil society, social rights and shaped the context for human rights and social justice social work.

The rules-based purpose and powers of  the Council of Europe – through its European Court of Human Rights and its convention system applicable to 46 countries in Europe – has held states to account through consensus, peer pressure and diplomacy. The European Union has promoted social rights, freedoms, prosperity and inclusion not least through the adoption of the 2021 European Pillar of Social Rights in which IFSW was directly involved. The UN has also been active and crucial in supporting Europe’s social, economic and environmental development.

The war on Ukraine, other acts of aggression by Russia and the rise of far right, populist and authoritarian politics and governments in Europe (and globally) are challenging and undermining this political framework and, therefore, the values, ethics and progressive legal frameworks that have shaped our profession for decades.

This pushback affects the contexts and politics within which social workers practice – as frontline defenders of rights for (often) the most marginalised people, and as promoters of inclusive. tolerant communities.  Social workers stand up for the rights of all in the face of aggression against people in migration, ethnic minorities and LGBTQi communities with the rise of right wing, populist and nationalistic politics.

In the last year, a small number of associations in Europe have even faced direct or indirect threats of blacklisting or other political interference.

IFSW Europe is reaching out, supporting and connecting members in such situations and exploring how we can collectively provide useful help for the long term for members in duress, coordinated through our Strengthening Social Work Across Europe through IFSW project.

This project, supported by funding from IFSW global, is for all members, not just those in particular difficulty. Our project aims to develop IFSW Europe’s value, responsiveness and consistency in supporting members in diverse ways,  as a professional community with common purpose.

There is a swell of activism across the region in social work and amongst our allies. IFSW Europe has a crucial role in this through bringing social workers together. Through our representatives in our regional institutions and through our funded projects we are at many key decision-making and lobbying tables, working with partners to protect rights and social justice at macro levels as well as in the field, in social work with citizens every day.  This is crucial work which we will continue into the coming year.

We will continue to promote our profession’s role in protecting and extending human rights and democracy. Thanks to the many of you bringing our values to life.

World Social Work Day – March 2025

The IFSW theme for World Social Work Day 2025, Strengthening Intergenerational Solidarity for Enduring Wellbeing.

Members from across Europe sent reports and pictures of WSWD activities – conferences, social work awards,  some of which were included in the quarterly briefing.  In 2026 we are calling for more members to share their WSWD activities.

WSWD Webinar

IFSW Europe organised a webinar for WSWD on 18th March co-organised by the IFSW E New Social Workers group and representatives for social work and ageing. It explored bridges between the generations considering:

  • Why an intergenerational perspective in social work is so important now
  • How social workers can support each other across the generations
  • Examples of intergenerational social work practice in Europe.
  • How we celebrate the transformational power of intergenerational approaches

Thanks to Gerry Nosowska, Naro Ohanesian, Jo Fox, Alison Clyde, (Generations Working Together) Regina Vieira (Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco) and Judith Sixsmith, Dundee University for organising and contributing to this event.

During 2026, IFSW Europe will continue to promote intergenerational solidarity through the work of the New Social Workers Network and supporting a new IFSW position statement on social work and ageing.

Delegates Meeting – Oslo, Norway. October 3 – 5  2025

Sixty-two people attended the Delegates Meeting (DM) in Oslo in person – representing twenty-one European countries, plus observers and guests, including IFSW global President Joachim Mumba and Interest Secretary General Pascal Rudin.  We were also joined by colleagues online.

Delegates in person: Azerbaijan, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Greece,

Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Israel, Malta, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden,

Switzerland, Turkiye, United Kingdom

Online: Portugal

Apologies: France, Czechia

A report about the DM is available on the IFSW website here https://www.ifsw.org/ifsw-europe-delegates-meeting-3-5-october-2025-oslo-norway/  Full members also have access to all the supporting papers.

In the meeting we adopted our budget and our work plan for 2026 which will help us move towards our strategic aims for the next two years and this summarised below:

  1. Build stronger member associations:
  2. Influence European and national social work policies
  3. Promote social work practices and our identity
  4. Support social workers working conditions: This is in development for a future project
  5. Advocate for European social work within global bodies/organisations:
  6. Lobby and Campaign:
  7. Secure our finances and continued growth
  8. Deliver our regional conference – We accepted the proposal of Greece to host the next conference in 2027.
  9. Plan for the future and support new and all generations of social workers –
  10. Improve internal and external communications:

Motion from Ireland and Spain passed at the Delegates Meeting

In Oslo Delegates Meeting, Ireland and Spain brought a motion in support of Palestinians’ rights in Gaza, the West Bank and in Israel, decrying the war on Gaza and huge loss of life of civilians, and other attacks on Palestinians. The full motion can be read in the Delegates Meeting report.

The Motion also called for a Special General Meeting to be called to consider the suspension or expulsion of the Israeli Union of Social Workers (IUSW) from IFSW. This is on the grounds that the IUSW has not upheld IFSW’s ethical principles in not calling for social workers to be exempt from military combat in Gaza and not denouncing the military action on Gaza.

Following the passing of the Motion in Oslo, IFSW Europe has advocated for this Special General Meeting within the IFSW Global Executive. This was agreed and will be held online on 18th February 2026.

Projects and Networks 2025

The Responsive Research Project

Throughout 2025, IFSW was an active partner to developing and delivering the multi-country, three-year EU Horizon Responsive Project.  This was the first time the EU funding bodies commissioned a project from the Democracy strand and it signals potential for an innovative engagement between social work and the EU on the democratic rights of citizens using and affected by social services. You can read more on the dedicated website here https://responsive-europe.eu/ 

While it is EU funded, the learning and innovation examples from the project are widely relevant and cover universal challenges and opportunities for social workers.  The Responsive project aims to enhance the responsiveness of Europe’s social services to input and feedback from diverse citizens and to promote social services as a field for promotion of democracy and agency for citizens rather than as a place only of ‘receiving’ help and care.

IFSW Europe’s specific roles – in addition to providing ongoing perspectives from a social work practice and policy perspective – included:

  • Creating and disseminating an international survey of social workers’ and managers views about Responsiveness in many European languages which gained over 750 responses and substantially improved the project’s insights into what supports and hinders responsiveness, democracy and citizen participation in social services.
  • Leading on coordination and promotion of well attended webinars concerning all stages of the research and other dissemination activities
  • Working on the production of a handbook of inspiring responsiveness innovations
  • Supporting a range of dissemination activities

The project website is available here http://responsive-europe.eu

The New Social Workers Network (NSW)

This is increasingly well established, and through their outreach to the memberships, more NSWs across Europe are getting involved. Each member association has been asked to nominate at least one new social worker to be an active part of the network and through this, engagement is growing.

  • 13 countries represented in the NSW Network in 2025
  • Presented to over 1000 people in person and online
  • Agreed Network status, governance and enhanced funding for 2026 with Europe members
  • Launched call out aiming for NSW representation from every European member within 2026.

Recognising the importance of supporting new generation social workers, the Delegates approve an enhanced budget for the NSWs of €8000 for 2026 for more engagement, representative and impact activities and in presence in IFSW activities.

Social workers in war, conflict zones and disasters

Throughout this year, the war in Ukraine has continued to rage and the risk of wider military conflict in Europe has felt closer than for decades. We finished and reported on our IFSW member funded projects in Ukraine https://socialwork-ukraine.eu and we will continue to learn a huge amount from those innovations and the ongoing work they have catalysed in Ukraine.

Social workers continue to work with other forms of disasters such as the ongoing work to support victims of the 2023 earthquakes in south westers Türkiye and the role of social workers in prevention and response to wildfires in Spain.

The importance of social workers and other professionals having skills in responding to disasters and conflict – in the emergency phases and in the aftermath – is having increasing focus in the European Union at policy level as well as in national policies.

It is in our workplan that we will work in 2026 on supporting more learning and sharing of knowledge in this field along with partners and allies.

Eco-social work

Building on the success of our four year ‘eco-wisdom’ project and the outstanding conference in Oslo in October, we have continued our work to develop eco-social work practices in 2025, creating a new steering group and starting work on developing learning and practice resources to promote the mainstreaming of eco-social approaches across all fields of social work .

This will include social work in the field of environmental and climate disasters and their consequences (such as mass migration).  But it is also about embedding eco-social approaches into everyday practice, recognising that environmental destruction, pollution and climate change are relevant to the holistic mission of social work everywhere. We have commenced working with academic colleagues and collaborators to take next steps.

Human Rights

With the IFSW Global Commission on Human Rights still under review. IFSW Europe established a Human Rights Network in 2024. The Network is currently on a pause and will be brought back in a new form later in 2026.

Improving Communications with and between members

In 2025, we started a regular newsletter for members,  distributed through emails and provided in non-confidential form) on the IFSW website. We received feedback on the need for better communications from a member survey and from an exercise at the Delegates Meeting. In 2026 we will implement a much more effective platform to reach our members and prospective member, and to enable members to communicate with each other.

Our Regional Conference – Oslo and Alta, Norway, October 2025

From 6 to 8 October 2025, over 600 social workers, educators, and researchers from across Europe and far beyond gathered in Oslo, the capital of Norway, for the IFSW Europe Regional Conference – Bridging Communities: Building Sustainable Futures. A full write up is available here. https://www.ifsw.org/together-for-people-and-planet-ifsw-europe-2025-conferences-inspire-collective-action/

The conference focused on eco-social themes, building on the project that IFSW Europe has led since 2021, and in alignment with IFSW Global’s ongoing commitment to the global eco-social charter and collaboration with international bodies such as the UN and WHO.

The conference was an incredible gathering of social workers (the largest ever in Norway!) activists, academics, commentators, authors, politicians and artists of different disciplines, centred on themes of Green Social Work, Climate and Environmental Change, the UN’s Sustainability Goals, and Indigenous Perspectives. Over three days, through talks, cultural moments, political engagement, workshops, field visits and creative side events, we explored the deep interconnections between people, society, nature and our profession.

From discussions on eco-social democracy and de-colonising social work, to reflections on climate adaptation, disaster response, education and the future of work for a sustainable future, the sessions reaffirmed that the profession is and must be at the heart of the global transformation challenges we all face – working for social justice, the wellbeing of people and nature, and hopeful futures for all.

Around 70 people also attended the two day ‘post-conference’ focused on and led by social workers, activists and academics from the Indigenous Sami community in Alta, Sápmi in the far north of Norway.


The Northern Lights, Alta, Norway, IFSW Europe Regional Conference

We heard about the history of social work in Sapmi, about the activism for Sami rights and how social workers have been part of this, and about the environmental challenges for Sami communities across the whole of northern Scandinavia.

We were also joined for an inspiring talk by global Indigenous Commissioner for IFSW, Hilary Weaver.

Hilary Weaver, IFSW Global Indigenous Commissioner and view of the coast in Alta

This moving, illuminating event deepened our knowledge and appreciation of the challenges for indigenous people in Europe and beyond. It also brought home the vital value of indigenous knowledge, wisdom and traditional ways from which all can learn, and the key role of social workers in supporting and advocating for indigenous rights.

Together, these events created a powerful space for reflection, learning, and solidarity, highlighting how social work is central to building a sustainable, caring, and inclusive future for all at national and international levels.

Both conferences were organized by Fellesorganisasjonen (FO), the Norwegian Union of Social Educators and Social Workers, with the particular leadership of IFSW Europe Vice President and senior policy officer in FO, Andreas Kikvik.

National member conferences 2025

Congratulations to all members organising national conferences for WSWD and marking other significant moments. President Ruth Allen provided video messages or live contributions online from IFSW Europe for events in Malta, Latvia, Norway, Portugal and Türkiye.  Here are two example reports from Türkiye and Czechia.

The Turkey Social Services Congress, Ankara.

The national  Association of Social Workers (SHUDER) organized the 9th Social Services Congress with the theme of “Social Services in the Spiral of Hope, Shame and Despair” on November 15-16, 2025, in Ankara and provided a full write up which is available here on the IFSW website https://www.ifsw.org/social-services-in-the-spiral-of-hope-shame-and-despair-was-discussed-at-the-9th-national-social-services-congress-in-turkiye/

Left: SHUDER President Irem Cosanu Yalazan address the Congress. Right:  President Irem (right) joins colleagues celebrating 60 years since graduation

Profiling the Czechia 100th Anniversary Conference, Prague.

President Ruth Allen spoke in person at the Czech Association of Social Workers celebration of 100 years of social work, in December 2026. At a time of new political and professional challenges including the diversity of social work bodies in the country,  the conference explored learning from the 100-year history of social work in Czechia under liberal and repressive regimes; the challenges of improving working conditions and unifying advocacy for social workers across the country. The value of international cooperation and shared learning through IFSW was also discussed.


Left: IFSW Europe President Dr Ruth Allen addresses social workers in Prague, Czechia
Right: Pavel Pankava and Deputy Chair Petr Zavel meeting with Ruth before the conference to discuss the issues for Czechia and the role of IFSW in supporting associations to thrive.

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