First masterclass of CITICESS

 

 

After many weeks of preparations of the partnership we have reached the very first Masterclass of the program. This is an important part of our project, all the topics are decided by the CITICESS partnership. As we are moving forward, trying to find new, innovative solutions for our social services aiming to help the most vulnerable groups, we are examining good practices of other cities, and exploring new methods and approaches. To provide deep insight in some of the methods we organize these Masterclasses in this case about the Relational Welfare Approach, and the Poverty Aware Social Work Paradigm.

Relational Welfare with Hilary Cottam and Pernille Randrup-Thomsen

After a heartwarming welcome from project leader Rob Smeets and an introduction by Gerardo de Luzenberger we heard the motivating story of Pernille Randrup-Thomsen about their project Staircase to Staircase in Aarhus which also uses the principles of the Relational Welfare Approach. At the kick-off meeting we had the chance to get to know the project quite well, and Pernille showed us a picture on the wall of the founder of the Relational Welfare approach, Hilary Cottam. A year has passed, and now we could hear Hilary herself, explaining her perspective on the social system.

 

“All across Europe we have systems that were designed after the Second World War, and these systems focus on finding out what is wrong with the citizens, and fixing the issue. We as people and our society, economy have changed so much that we need a different approach: we need to focus on what system we can build around citizens that can grow their capabilities, and help them to flourish. 

 

 

Our relationships determine our health, what job we can find, how well we do at school, and determine whether we are well taken care of in our old age. We need to design systems that can support our relationships.”

Hilary and Pernille discussed the details of the approach and how it came to life in the Staircase to Staircase project. They talked about the difficulties of the approach and the success of this method, and the possibilities of spreading the structure, as it is already happening in Denmark.
 

Poverty Aware Paradigm with Federica Vezzoli and Rossella Di Marzo

The afternoon session continued with an introduction of Nora Kebel, from the management team of the Lead Partner, and Gerardo introduced the first guest Rossella Di Marzo who is the Head of the Social Services Department in Pordenone. She explained how their Department works and what the importance of the Poverty Aware Paradigm is and introduced the second speaker of the Masterclass was Federica Vezzoli, who is a social worker, and a PHD student. Her research focus is about poverty and the professional practices of social workers.

 

She explained what the connections between social work and poverty are, and what a paradigm is in this case, and how it is connected to practical work, how it is helping to develop critical awareness on how we work.

 

“We need to rebuild the helping relationships between social workers and people in poverty. The inequity is also present in the relationships and stigmatic events for example during school, during an interview with the social worker, or at the post office: these contribute to the feeling of being useless. The practice of the Poverty Aware Paradigm shows how social workers can work with people in poverty with an active realization of their rights.”

 

 

Social workers need to be trustworthy allies of people in poverty, to help them in their daily fights, to commit, to rediscover the professional activity as a way of social justice.

Both sessions were followed by thoughtful discussions in the breakout rooms and a Q&A session where the speakers could answer the questions of the partnership and the stakeholders present.