November conference 2023

East German challenges

Social work in eastern Germany is undergoing a generational change. Employees who built up social work in the 1990s; committed people who got the associations and societies up and running; teachers who founded university education are retiring and new colleagues are also asking about the special challenges of social work in the eastern federal states, reflecting on their own socialization and dealing with the biographical backgrounds of addressees in East Germany.

It is time for a reflective-critical look back at the development - the political, social and institutional development of East German challenges and the specific approaches of the professionals involved, their addressees and the organizational embedding of social work. The confrontation with racism, the development of welfare associations and the training of professionals require consideration from an East German perspective in order to be able to derive approaches, methods and narratives of democracy education for social work and to recognize and address the associated challenges and opportunities.

We have cordially invited professionals, researchers and students to discuss with us the specific developments and transformations of social work in the new federal states and to jointly identify opportunities and tasks for research and practice.

Program

In eight workshops, transformations in social work over the last 30 years were examined and critically analyzed. Researchers and professionals presented and discussed their contributions from the current book: "Genese Ost: Transformationen der Sozialen Arbeit in Deutschland" (Barbara Budrich Publishers). The topics were:

• The structures and addressees* in the socio-pedagogical fields of action of elderly care, family support, hospice work, cultural education as well as youth and community work.

• The development of the understanding of the profession in the new federal states with an educational biographical, sexual pedagogical, feminist and racism-critical perspective on social work in East Germany.
• The organizational transformations of the supporting structures as a result of the transfer of institutions in the 1990s from Caritas, Volkssolidarität, the universities and trade union interest groups.

Objectives

In addition to visualizing the specific development of social work in East Germany and the resulting opportunities and challenges, it is important to look to the future and derive tasks, approaches and mandates. The aim of the symposium was a mutual transfer of practical experience and research results in order to jointly and constructively shape social work in East Germany in the generational change.

Conclusion

With this topic, we were able to open up a supra-regional discussion space between academia and practice and look forward to further joint projects, publications and events on the topic.

In the evaluation, the participants would like to see more events that facilitate exchange and networking between practitioners and universities and that the topics of the TRAWOS Institute - the promotion of democracy, education and culture, extremism as well as flight and migration, the dialog between East and West Germany - are also taken into account across borders.