Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
This chapter analyses the development of entrepreneurship in the political discourse. Committed to the promotion of social change, we seek to develop a macro-level analysis of entrepreneurial activity in the EU context, but also, a particular look at Portugal, a country that as a Member State integrates the community guidelines.
The research is both qualitative and quantitative, presenting (1) results of a literature review process and content analysis of the European and Portuguese programmes and policies, and (2) a frequency analysis of entrepreneur/entrepreneurship references in Portuguese government programmes.
The analyses suggest that the attention of this type of activity guided by individualistic principles, typical of a neoliberal wave, gains expression in times of greater socio-economic fragility. Also, the results allowed understanding the effectiveness of the entrepreneurial activity and the representations of the subjects about the respective access, operationalisation and adequacy. We also explored the positioning of social work around this activity, allowing us to recognise potentialities and constraints in the accomplishment of a closer proximity between the two fields.
This chapter takes its starting point in the recognition of multiple challenges that are being felt at all scales of society and the need to examine the root causes behind them if we are to find new pathways that benefit humanity and ecology for the long term. A framework for social innovation is presented that differentiates between addressing symptoms and designing for systems change and transformation. Three case studies at different geographic scales are given: an ‘Unlimited’ style of neighbourhood incubator, a Bioregional Weaving Lab and the World Social Forum. The examples illustrate that designing innovation according to symptoms, systems or transformation is relevant whether working locally, regionally or globally. Also, that social work and community development approaches are fundamental to all kinds of social innovation, whatever the scale or depth of the methodology. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the need for decision makers to have the knowledge and capacity to work in these frameworks, while additionally including factors such as place, replication through trust-based relationships, the diversity of local context, multi-stakeholder ecosystems and a faith that we can indeed change the world for the better.
The chapter illustrates two community participatory action research (CPAR) projects carried out with social practitioners working in services for homeless people in Italy.
One project was carried out in the north-east, where local welfare is well structured and organised. The second was implemented in the south, where social care services are underdeveloped and institutions less attentive to extreme poverty. In both cases, the local university promoted and participated in the CPAR process.
The projects showed that the CPAR can help in the co-creation of innovation in social work, encouraging equal inclusion and collaboration of social professionals in the identification, research and resolution of community issues. Additionally CPAR supports the group re-elaboration of their own experience working with homeless people. The comparison between the two cases confirmed that contextual factors can be critical in social innovation.
The editors, scholars from Norway, Switzerland and the Netherlands, co-presented Social Innovation and Social Work themed symposia at the European Conferences of Social Work Research (ECSWR) in 2019 (Leuven) and 2021 (online, Bucharest). The discussions around social innovation and numerous exchanges at the conferences enabled us to share insights about emerging trends and knowledge from across Europe on a wide range of topics around innovation in social work. Our common motivation for establishing this book was therefore a shared wish for a resource for inspiration and a framework to ultimately ensure improved outcomes for societal challenges and to increase social quality of people and communities. This book provides a broad collection of theoretical and practical studies about social innovation in connection to social work. Readers will be introduced to varied approaches and evidence-based examples that together help in grasping the concept of social innovation in the context of social work and to gain competence in relevant terms and aspects. The intention is to increase readers’ abilities to introduce and implement social innovation in social work in a way that leads to lasting positive change for the common good. We have not attempted either a textbook that exhaustively analyses where participatory innovations are making most impact across Europe, nor to cover all possible kinds of innovation. Instead, we explore where social work could go in terms of social innovation in ways that are relevant and topical to the people it is intended to benefit and to develop as a discipline.
In many areas (such as education, work, politics or administration, among others) information access is not yet fully realised. Therefore, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities holds considerable potential for innovation in this regard – namely in social work. This chapter reflects on introducing information in Easy Language in adult protection service as an innovation and learning process. In this chapter, the project ‘Einfach leicht verständlich’ [Just Easy to Understand] – the first R&D project in Switzerland to address questions relating to the transfer of official texts into Easy Language – is discussed form an innovation-specific perspective. In particular, light is shed on the framework conditions, success factors and emerging challenges. The chapter thus aims to: (1) show which innovation-specific aspects become apparent, (2) establish links to different forms of learning and (3) draw conclusions that allow further refinement of the concept of social innovation. A key finding is that innovative results in the form of concepts, tools or media are not yet sufficient to bring about innovation.
This chapter presents the results of our responsive evaluation of the Neighbourhood Job Agency (NJA). The NJA is a social innovation initiative from a group of Dutch social entrepreneurs who aim at relating unemployed residents with (paid) jobs in the neighbourhood in a novel way. With our case study we demonstrate the importance of the social aspects of innovation processes and the potential roles of social work practitioners and researchers in these processes by: (1) enhancing the capability of voice of end users, (2) acknowledging the diversity of needs and experiences of joint stakeholders, primarily end users, (3) monitoring, averting or mitigating the unintended effects of innovation and (4) preventing well-intended paternalism of innovators striving for (radical) social change to develop a blind spot for the systemic partnerships necessary to sustainably embed their social innovations. We argue that social workers can act as moderators of change within social innovation development requiring: (1) the awareness of where and by whom social innovation initiatives take place within their local working practices, (2) the position to relate to all stakeholders involved to influence the course of development, as it is taking place, in accordance with public and democratic values and (3) the guidance of the societal learning process that (social) innovation ultimately is.
To guide the direction and approach of social innovation a normative framework is highly useful and perhaps even indispensable, particularly for social workers engaging in or with social innovation. In this chapter the capability approach (CA) is proposed as one potential and promising framework for social workers who are, or aspire to be, involved in social innovation projects to provide normative grounding in social values consistent with the global definition of social work. Let alone that the CA is not the only possible normative framework to serve such a purpose, the chapter describes how we succeeded in operationalising the CA by co-creatively developing an instrument that enabled us to work with the rather abstract normative notions in the CA in concrete participatory action research studies. This instrument takes the form of the Capability Cards, a conversational tool in which dialogue cards based on Martha Nussbaum’s central capabilities facilitate professional–client or professional–professional conversations on the essence of the preferred good life and what enhances or hampers it as it is lived. Several case examples show that the application of the Capability Cards indeed guides reflections, dialogue, decisioning and actions towards the key normative notions of the CA.
Theories of social innovation point to a new way of addressing a social problem that should be both transferable and sustainable. But how is social innovation promoted and implemented in social services? There have been two significant approaches. The first set of innovations relates to investments in new models of social care that promote an overarching community and home-based approach, through local care ecosystems, for example. The second refers to innovations in social work, such as social services outreach and coordination with employment services for people farthest from the labour market or integrated services for vulnerable families. The purpose of this chapter is to describe a series of social services innovations covering both approaches based on preliminary analysis and identification of innovative social services programmes of public authorities who are members of the European Social Network. This methodology aided in developing patterns of innovation in social services, which could help identify areas for future investment.
In this chapter it will be argued that learning communities are both helpful and challenging for higher education in social work. Learning communities are emerging in the field of social work and in general in higher education in the Netherlands. Working with learning communities might bring up questions about the identity of the social work profession and the professional work of educators, societal issues, motivation, cooperation, group dynamics, and individual and collective learning and so on.
That learning communities in higher education might best be embedded in a sphere of constructive friction, reflection and (action) research leading to action will be explored. An intervention tool will be elaborated to better understand the working of learning communities. This intervention tool differentiates between five aspects that define the dynamics in learning communities: context, authenticity, alliance, value creation (learning) and social innovation. The chapter is based on action research on learning communities in the field of social work situated in the Netherlands.
The field of community development is rapidly gaining interest when it comes to social work and social innovation. Community-building can be regarded as a countermovement to neoliberal individualisation and its negative side effects like loneliness and polarisation. The notion of community is rediscovered and reinstalled. Social workers and other professionals play an important role in offering communities support to revitalise. From Robert Putnam’s work we learned about the notion of social capital and how working on bridging and bonding can strengthen community life. Although social work already has a long history when it comes to community development, since the end of the last century it was a neglected field. Also, the nature of communities has changed considerably. Therefore, the profession of the community worker also needs innovation. In this chapter we discuss recent developments regarding community-building, social innovation and social work.
