Symposium at Brixen Campus: Social Pedagogical Family Assistance

MCI Department of Social Work provides important impetus with workshop

This year, the symposium “Social Pedagogical Family Assistance – Educativa Domiciliare” took place at the Brixen Campus of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. It was organized jointly by the Competence Center for Social Work and Social Policy of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, the University of Innsbruck, the Social Services Agency of Bozen-Bolzano, and MCI | The Entrepreneurial School®. A cohort of our MCI master's program in Social Work, Social Policy & Management also had the opportunity to participate in the symposium.

Three publicly accessible keynote speeches presented current and previously unpublished research findings from Austria, Italy, and Germany:

• Wolfgang Hagleitner from the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano and Guido Thaler from the University of Innsbruck addressed the issue of workload in social-educational family assistance
• Francesca Maci from the University of Parma highlighted the challenges and perspectives that arise when the juvenile court is involved
• Ulrike Loch also spoke about social-educational family assistance in the context of child protection

In the second part of the event, the more than 200 participants were able to choose from seven workshops and engage in intensive discussions on current developments, research findings, and challenges in the field of Social Work. The transnational perspective was particularly valuable in this context.

The MCI department of Social Work led the workshop “Returning from foster care to the family and social pedagogical family assistance – a multi-perspective issue.” This workshop combined three perspectives: the scientific perspective (by Christina Lienhart, professor at the MCI department of Social Work), the professional perspective of social pedagogical family assistance (represented by Josefina Egg, MA Center for Social Work – zesa), and the personal experiences of a care leaver.

At the end, the results of the workshops were brought together in a plenary session.