Welcome to SWAN

SWAN is a radical, campaigning organisation of social work and social care practitioners, students, service users, carers and academics

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What We Do

Social Work

Social work in Britain today has lost direction. We need to find more effective ways of resisting the dominant trends within social work and map ways forward for a new engaged practice. SWAN encourages an inclusive debate about the future direction of social work, involving social work academics, practitioners, students, service users and representative organisations (both professional and trade union).

Action

SWAN developed from the Social Work Manifesto written in 2004. It launched a popular defence of social work in the aftermath of the Baby Peter tragedy in 2008. It continues to hold hugely successful conferences and campaigns. It supports grassroots campaigns across the globe.

Network

SWAN offers a space to discuss the impact of neoliberalism, marketisation and managerialism on Social Work and Social Pedagogy; the links between social work and social movements; the importance and significance of local social work traditions; alternative interpretations and practices of social work across the globe and how this affects our understandings of “international social work”.

Letter in Support of Alan Dettlaff

As members of the Social Work Action Network-International to express our concern aboutthe recent removal of Professor Alan Dettlaff from his post as Dean of the Graduate Collegeof Social Work, at the University of Huston.SWAN-I is a network of social ... Read More

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We want to develop a network of service users, practicitioners, academics and students to support radical and progressive social work. We need a social work that is ready to challenge oppressive practice, that means working collectively across the country and internationally.