Summary

This presentation will outline the International Federation of Social Workers European Region Project focused on New Social Workers. This presentation will explore the background, process and findings of this international research project spanning across 31 European countries and including almost 1,000 New Social Workers across Europe to improve the transition from education to employment for New Social Workers, benefiting both social work education and practice. Recognising that the future of the profession is with new workers and students, IFSW Europe started a project where each professional/member organisation of IFSW Europe was encouraged to nominate a ‘new social worker’ (defined as a final year student or a worker in the first five years of their career). These new social workers have been meeting together regularly and have progressed the project significantly. They used a research approach called collaborative autoethnography to share ideas through their lived experiences. This led to the group designing, translating and distributing a survey as well as undertaking follow up interviews to explore the experiences of almost 1,000 new social workers across Europe. This interactive presentation will share the project findings, discuss the forthcoming IFSW Europe academic paper on new social workers, and outline advice and recommendations for new social workers, social work educators and employers involved in this transition. The presenters will go through the context, methodology, findings, discussion and conclusion. The presenters will focus on exploring the themes that emerged from this project and lead into a discussion session on these themes for the potential of rich discussions on how the transition from education to employment can be improved for new social workers across Europe and globally

Keywords (separate with commas)

new social workers, early career social workers, new generation, transition, education, employment