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A podcast about international social work. Made by SocNet98, an European network of 18 universities that graduates students in social work. In this podcast you can listen to a broad specter of topics that is all connected to social work in an international perspective.
[Automatic captions by Autotekst using OpenAI Whisper V3. May contain recognition errors.]
[Steinar]
Welcome to The Social Pod, a podcast brought to you by Socknet98, a network of universities sharing the common interest for social work in an international perspective.
So welcome to this episode on The Social Pod.
We are actually recording this episode in Helsinki in Finland, and we are just finishing our first day of the coordinators meeting here in Socknet98.
So the coordinators meeting, just to say that, is the meeting where all the coordinators from the 17 European universities are together physically in one place in Europe each year to try to coordinate and plan the International University Week.
And in this episode we are the four host universities of International University Week for International University Week 2025.
And we're going to have a talk with all of them to hear about what their International University Week is going to be all about.
So my name is Steinar Vikolt.
I'm going to host as a part of International University Week in Porsgrunn in Norway, where I work at the University of Southeastern Norway.
So that is me.
My next colleague is...
[Andrea]
My name is Andrea Pilgerstorfer and I am coordinator at St.
Pölten University of Applied Science, which is in Austria.
St.
Pölten is the capital city of Lower Austria and we are hosting this year University Week.
[Christian]
That's great.
Yeah, my name is Christian Spatscheck.
I come from Bremen in the northwest of Germany.
And Bremen is a Hanseatown in the northern part of Germany, 600,000 people.
And we are hosting an International Week on Social Work and Sustainability next year.
[Steinar]
That's great.
[Martina]
My name is Martina, Martina Mojtová.
I am the International University coordinator and responsible person of bachelors, masters, PhD study programs of social work at Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra.
And Nitra is not only the oldest town of Slovakia, it is now an important economic center of the Western Slovakia, seat of two universities and agriculture education and research.
And as far as population number is concerned, 77,000 inhabitants is the first biggest town of Slovakia.
[Steinar]
Yeah, that meaning that we have Slovakia here, we have Norway, Austria and Germany.
That's right, that's the four different places you as a student can travel for International University Week.
So first, I would like just to talk a little bit about what is International University Week.
As I mentioned when we started talking in this episode, we are SocNet98.
So we are right now, we are 17 universities that are within the field of social work, organize International University Week.
And International University Week is one week where we exchange students from all these almost 15, 16, 17 universities.
We send out our students to International University Weeks at four different places and we do that each year.
So if you add up the math for that, I think that would be about 200 to 300 students, something like that, that during one week actually do cross borders and go and visit places where we are hosting.
I think that one of the things that is, for example, if my Norwegian students, if they want to go to Austria, one thing is visiting Austria and seeing St.
Pölten.
But an added benefit is that when you're traveling to one place, you will also meet students from all the other places throughout Europe.
So either way, wherever you travel, you will still meet students from all the different kind of universities.
I think that is one benefit of this International University Week.
And also throughout that week you're traveling, you're going to be a part of, would you say it's a conference week maybe?
What would be the best description of International Universe Week?
[Christian]
Like a student conference designed for students.
But it has the character of a conference, but also maybe beyond that a lot of cultural activities, exchanges, meeting, getting to know each other, also some leisure parts.
So I think it's important to have a good mix.
[Steinar]
Yeah, because in SocNet98, one of the slogans is students meeting students.
So that is one of the things that we try to do throughout the week, getting students to meet students.
[Martina]
for me international university weeks it is diversity and diversity unites us similarities and differences and all intercultural communication and culture is really important to know each other
the strength and weakness of each country, of each university.
And it's really nice to be with many people, students and teachers from countries like Finland, Belgium.
Netherlands, Western Europe and East Europe.
They are united during this week and it's really nice because there are new friendships.
Even we have also from this International University Week,
some people who fall in love and they are now in marriage and they have further children.
[Steinar]
So this is really another... I don't think we should guarantee that for all the students.
But the students truly meet other students.
[Andrea]
But some of them, they really fall in love.
What we experienced during the long period of SocNet University Week, so 1998,
is that students really get the possibility to get in contact with each other and to discuss along the topic different perspectives.
And so they get a European feeling, I think, and they can figure out that there are
topics and issues or problems addressed in every country but maybe answered in different ways and so also they can can learn of good practices and and think about it too yeah and i think there is something like we are all social workers social pedagogues we there is something a we um experience i can say um which is very strong
[Steinar]
Absolutely, you do get a bigger identity as a social worker.
[Andrea]
And there are common values and shared values.
Also our ethical codex from EFSV or something like that gets alive by exchanging.
[Christian]
I think you really can see it.
It's also for me as a teacher, it's important to know how to
You do social work in Austria, in Slovakia, in Norway.
And what's the similarities and also what's the differences?
And it's always good to know we can contact each other.
So I know whom can I contact in certain topics or certain countries.
So that's very important.
[Martina]
And for me, International University Weeks maybe symbolize the beginning of the student's journey to know other cultures.
And maybe this is the beginning to go to other countries, to abroad for semester to another universities.
[Steinar]
Yeah, I think that almost half of the students that was my Norwegian students that went to Loven last year, now they are in Tanzania for their last possible exchange.
So they're there for three months now.
[Martina]
For example, students from Norway, they were in Nitra in Slovakia for one semester for training in a field visit in one non-profit organization.
storm uh people who are oh people with that that you're just getting connected
Yes, they are working with people with drug addicts and they have some experiences from Norway and put these experiences to Slovakia and they share this.
They were really satisfied with this experience because these people from organization Storm, they take them to people who are
who are drug users and also people who works in the sex business and how can they help them and from consulting some counseling or or to help them to get some job and yeah
And be socialized again.
Absolutely.
[Steinar]
So that was a little bit about what is International University Week and how it affects students.
And we truly see that networking, students meeting students.
I think by digitalization and modernization, we see that a lot of students, they do keep in touch.
They keep in touch on WhatsApp.
They actually, I know that some of my students went to other countries meeting up with students that they met on International University Week.
So it's a huge, it helps a lot of students connecting throughout Europe.
Let's now go a little bit into depth in the four different destinations.
I can maybe start.
So at the International University Week, it's hosted in Porsgrunn in Norway by my university, the University of South-Eastern Norway.
We are a university with 18,000 students approximately, but we are spread out on eight different campuses.
So social work is in just in one campus in Porsgrunn.
It's about two hours train ride south of Oslo, the main capital.
So that's kind of gives where we're situated.
a little bit.
The topic of the International University Week is going to be activities in social work.
And it has actually been the same topic for many International University Weeks that we had in Portugal, simply because this is something that we try to emphasis in our two social work educations that we have in Portugal.
Using activities with clients together with them a lot in nature is one thing that we focus on.
And I think that this is something that sets our International University Week a little bit apart.
So if you choose to come to International University Week in Porsgrunn in Norway, we will have both a wilderness camp that we're actually going to put up inside of the campus.
And we will also have the possibility for the students if you choose to actually be sleeping and staying inside of this wilderness camp.
My student assistant, I had two fabulous student assistants working on this project and they told me that they would love to make a Viking wilderness camp.
So that's going to be awesome.
So when you register for International Worst Week in Porsgrunn, then you can choose if you would like to stay in a hotel or stay in this Lavo camp that we're going to make.
Other than that, we are going to have field visits as we usually do.
We'll try to have some online presence.
I feel that it's very nice if we're going to be able to meet the other three universities online, so you truly get a feeling that you're participating in a bigger event than just in one place.
And yeah, I think that would kind of give a little bit intro on what I think would be special about going to Porsgrunn
Of course, going to Norway, I think that feedback has been that it's been a little bit expensive maybe going to Norway.
I think we are one of the more expensive countries.
But also on the other hand, also the feedback from the students earlier year has been that it's been quite nice going out into nature, spending some time in Norway.
And also, as I always try to tell my students, you can spend the weekend before or the weekend after exploring the country.
Either way, where are you going?
So if you go to Norway, then I would of course suggest to try to stay in Oslo for the weekend before or after.
But if you travel to St.
Pölten.
[Andrea]
Yeah, if you travel to St.
Pölten, then you will be hosted by a university with six departments.
And one of it is social sciences, where we have...
the bachelor program and the master program of social work but also a program of social pedagogy bachelor program and further education master in the research center and our bachelor program within this there will be the international week
And we have like 300 students in bachelor program, so more or less 100 every year.
So it's a small university compared to others.
And St.
Pölten has...
And something about 60,000 inhabitants.
Also, it's a small city.
It's close to Vienna.
And there I can add to your recommendation.
So take the time to stay either before or afterwards at Vienna or the other cities.
So Linz also would be very close.
to Sankt Pölten and accessible by train.
So this is Sankt Pölten, the university.
And of course the topic could be something interesting.
We are going to speak about participation and service user involvement.
So there is one big question that follows us during the week.
which would be how can social work be supported by the knowledge of lived experience to rethink its own professional standards and values.
So we speak about institutionalized social work and the institutionalization maybe and participation practices to address the needs of vulnerable citizens.
Yeah.
[Steinar]
Do you know anything about field visits?
[Andrea]
Yeah, well, we are in touch with different good practices, examples of peer services.
But we didn't fix it yet, the appointments.
Yeah, and we also have within our program beside the professional board, a user-led board.
They support us, for instance, when we rethink the curriculum or we address different questions to them.
So we are...
Yeah, it's one of our topics to speak about this other perspective and to include it in our concepts and strategies.
And so this is what we, I think,
all think that it's important to speak about it.
What I wanted to say was that we are going to make
international groups during the week where they have tasks to work together so meaning that students from different countries will work together so it's very important to be like open to getting contact or at least your support or the students will be supported to get in contact with the others because they are going to work together during this week yeah
[Steinar]
That's a great point.
I think that we all try to do that in different ways, how we can facilitate for students to actually get to know other students.
But I think it's important also to tell the students that you need also to do something.
You need to get maybe out of your comfort zone, you need to get out of your language comfort zone and to try to get in touch with other people.
That is important.
If you travel to Germany, to Bremen, what can we expect?
[Christian]
Yeah, in Bremen you can expect a bigger city, 600,000 people.
And it's maybe famous for a beer company, maybe a football club.
Everything is quite green.
And that also leads us to the topic of the week.
It's called Social Work and Sustainability.
And we will talk about concepts and methods for ecosocial work or ecosocial futures.
And we will try to look deeper in the situation of the climate crisis and also ecological crisis and the impacts on maybe poorer people, on vulnerable people, different groups like old people, like poor people, like children, like youth, different effects on those groups, but also maybe on positive approaches, on ecological education, on green and eco projects, on sustainable learning projects.
and we try to find both ways the risks and also the potentials of that situation.
We might also look a bit about theory, about how are people related to nature, how can we describe our situation in the Anthropocene, in the limit of everything, in the post-growth society.
So that could be topics we're talking about and we find
It's a political theme, so at the moment we also have huge challenges, maybe through right-wing movements that counter ecological projects.
We want to look also on the political situation.
And beyond that, of course, we have a group experience in the week, so we also try to really mix students to get them into interaction, to maybe
We always call it work, not shop, if you do a workshop.
So you really have to be active and mix and meet people.
And we also have cultural activities and we're going to storm the city and we're going to visit also projects in the city, then maybe also on topics related to ecology or eco-social projects.
And also you might learn a bit about different places in Europe and meet and exchange with people.
So I think that's the main part for Bremen.
[Steinar]
That sounds very exciting.
And if we travel to Nitra?
[Martina]
If you travel to Nitra, you will be very welcome to Konstantin the Philosopher University, which is one of the six best Slovak universities based on international rankings.
It consists of five faculties and has a total of 7,070 students.
Our university offers 242 study programs accredited in 19 fields of study.
and consists of five faculties.
Our faculty is the Faculty of Social Sciences and Healthcare and we are the second youngest faculty of our university.
The total number of our students is more than 1050.
And what do we offer for university weeks?
The topic is clinical social work.
We will welcome 50 students and 15 lecturers from SOCNET network.
Clinical social work is specialty practice area of social which focuses on the assessment, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mental illness, emotional and other behavior
disturbances and the knowledge base of clinical social work includes theories of biological, psychological and social development, diversity and cultural competency, interpersonal relationships, family and group dynamics, mental disorders, addiction, impacts of illness, trauma or injury and the effects of the physical, social and cultural environment.
We appreciate from teachers some interactive workshops on different aspects of clinical social work with vulnerable groups.
For example, unwanted pregnant women and single mothers with children
victims of domestic violence or abused and neglected children, victims of bullying and cyberbullying or persons with addiction and terminally ill and dying.
During these weeks, we will have some mixed groups.
The topic is clinical social work at international context and
we would like to introduce clinical social work in each country.
So introduce the competencies, status, areas of application, target groups, clinical social worker, practice sites, legislative methods, interventions and examples of good practice.
So we need to have an answer.
Who can practice clinical social work and what is its content?
Do they use specialist social work counselling or can they do therapy?
And if your universities or countries offer a specialisation focusing on clinical social work,
So we will find some similarities and differences and maybe we want to know the optimal
how clinical social work can be used.
And then we will have some workshops from teachers, from SOKNEC members, and presentation of universities, and then we offer some field visits.
In parallel sessions, they are focused on victims of domestic violence or victims of sexual assaults and rape.
Then the other one is non-organized groups of children and youth in NITRA and secondary prevention of drug addiction.
in the form of social street work with drug users and with people who work in the sex business in Nitra and its surroundings.
And the other one is social workers in healthcare in our faculty hospital.
And the other one is Komin, is the point of contact for all foreigners arriving and living in Nitra, especially Ukrainians from the war between Russians and Ukrainians.
Nitra is the city with the second highest number of refugees from Ukraine.
and we provided information and advisory assistance and legal services to foreigners affected by the armed conflict in Ukraine.
In 2020 or 2022, the city council approved the signing of a memorandum of cooperation between UNICEF and the city of Dnitra.
So you are very welcome next year.
And maybe I repeated the date for university weeks.
It's from 31 of March until 4th of April 2025.
[Andrea]
I'm glad you mentioned also the workshops which are held from different Soknet partners because we were talking about this possibility that students getting to know other students from other partners but they also get to know other lecturers from other partners and they have the possibility to experience different
topics around or different approaches around one topic from from the partners and and also different like teaching style or whatever so it really opens absolutely yeah because if you then go to nitra for example then you will have clinical social work as the topic but then
[Steinar]
Probably one of my colleagues from Norway will go there with students and he or she will actually then talk about how would clinical social work in Norway look like.
So if a German student comes there, they will learn about Norwegian.
So that is the whole thing that I just love about this setup.
A lot of the students ask me, what country should I go to?
And I say that it doesn't.
really matter because you just choose by the topic or by what country you want to visit because either way you will get this International University Week feeling.
You will get the inputs from all of the other universities.
So that is one of the great things.
[Martina]
And Nitra is near to Bratislava, the city of Slovakia.
It's just 90 kilometers from Bratislava and it's near to Vienna also.
[Steinar]
That's right.
That's a good point.
So just to wrap it up, we are the four hosts of International University Week 2025.
We have a lot of work in front of us.
Do you have any, like for all the students listening now, some requests for them?
What should they have a focus on now until International University Week?
[Andrea]
So you mean how they should prepare or what should they... Well, okay.
So we are hosting the University Week as a BIP, which means that we meet before on 17th of March.
And it would be great to be there.
Yeah.
[Steinar]
So you have an online meeting?
[Andrea]
Yeah, we have an online meeting and I want to involve also our students or a part of our students to the organizational team.
And we want to clarify then what exactly and how we want to do.
But there will be something like my university I'm studying, my country and the topic maybe.
So that you can come with perspectives from your country.
[Steinar]
Yeah, that is a good point for having the students actually bringing something themselves.
But it might be a little bit different if you're a student going to St.
Pölten rather than Bremen, rather than Porsgrunn, what is expected.
So I think my biggest, like if I can please ask the students, read your emails and know that it will be different from destination to destination.
So, if you're going to Bremen, but you have a buddy that's going to Portstuen, you cannot say that, yeah, we're supposed to, because no, there will be individual preparations you need to do and different ways of maybe paying and this kind of stuff.
So, it's always important to make sure that you read the information that is for you as a student traveling to that certain destination.
I think that helps a lot.
[Andrea]
Yeah, and if any irritation occurs, then don't hesitate to ask your coordinator on site because he always is in contact with us.
[Steinar]
That's important.
[Christian]
I also agree that the local lecturers are also very important as a contact person.
And also maybe consider you could have a workshop yourself.
Sometimes workshops are given by lecturers, sometimes by students.
And it also maybe depends on your university what's expected or possible.
But we are open for both formats, workshops by students or by lecturers or both together.
[Martina]
In Slovakia, we would like to have students prepare some paper with relevant literature sources and current legislation for the topic clinical social work.
and just introduce clinical social work.
In Norway, I know you have Werner Player.
What is their competencies and status and target groups and so on, which methods and interventions they use and just
share this information and differences from country to country, how it looks like in Austria.
Maybe you have or you have no clinical social work.
Maybe there are some social workers in health care.
So just share this information and find some similarities and differences and maybe define the optimal way the social worker looks like.
[Steinar]
And if you're going to Porsgrunn, to Norway, one of the preparations is to pack warm clothes.
Yes, because of Steiner.
[Martina]
He's really an adventure man.
[Steinar]
But it is cold.
In this time of year, it can be very cold, but it can also be beautiful and warm, so you never know.
So that is one of the things.
Thank you so much for being a part of this episode and talking a little bit about International University Weeks in each of your countries.
The more, like all contact information, information about the different International University Weeks will be posted on our webpage, saknet98.eu.
So all the information that you heard us talk about now, you can find the links, you can find the emails, all the information that you need to learn more about this.
So thank you, everyone.
[Martina]
Thank you.
Thank you.
We are really looking forward to you.
We are seeing you.
Thank you.