Social Work Week 2025: Call for contributors as dates announced

The countdown to Social Work Week 2025 is on. The week, which is now in its fifth year, will take place from Monday 17 to Friday 21 March 2025, and will coincide with World Social Work Day on Tuesday 18 March 2025.

Social Work England are calling for contributors to their online programme for the week, while encouraging professionals and organisations to mark this moment in ways that fit their local context and need.

As the specialist regulator focused on enabling positive change in social work, Social Work England established the week to encourage a national conversation on this complex and diverse profession.

Since 2021, Social Work England’s annual programme of free online events has anchored the week in effective social work practice. It has brought together thousands of people, including professionals and people with lived and learned experience to learn, connect and influence the future of the social work profession.

Independently communities, employers and social workers have also embraced the week hosting activities and sharing stories across the country, and even internationally, to showcase how social work positively impacts on society.

Social Work England is inviting expressions of interest for its programme of events for 2025. Expressions of interest should focus on the following themes. Preference will be given to submissions that involve people with lived or learned experience of social work.

• Data and insight
• Education and training
• Innovation
• Professional identity
• Safe and effective practice

Sarah Blackmore, executive director of professional practice and external engagement at Social Work England, said:

“We are excited to announce the return of Social Work Week for its fifth year. This annual moment has become a must attend for learning, collaboration, and enabling positive change in all aspects of the social work profession.

By facilitating this important week, we want to encourage quality conversations driven by everyone who has an interest in seeing social work succeed. Only by collaborating and placing the voices of people with lived experience at the heart of our programme will we find solutions to common challenges.

I’d encourage social workers, employers, students, education providers, and individuals with lived experience of social work to consider the many diverse stories that they have to share and how Social Work Week gives them an opportunity to do so.”

Themes of Social Work England's programme during Social Work Week

Social Work England’s programme will be focused on the following themes:

• Data and insight: how do we ensure that social work practice and its regulation is data driven? And how will this improve people's experience of the profession?
• Education and training: how do we support social workers throughout each step of their career journey? Why is continuous learning and supervision essential?
• Innovation: what can we learn from the adoption of digital technologies/artificial intelligence (AI) to improve professional practice. And where are the ethical tensions?
• Professional identity: is a greater sense of professional identity crucial for the future of social work?
• Safe and effective practice: how does professional competence contribute to building public trust in the social work profession? What can we learn from fitness to practise?

How to submit an expression of interest

Expressions of interest to be part of Social Work England’s online programme must be submitted by midnight on Tuesday 31 December 2024.

You can submit an expression of interest using the online form. A panel, which will include people with lived and learned experience of social work, will review and consider submissions for the 2025 programme against the themes.

We encourage sessions to be:

• accessible for, inclusive, and relevant to, a range of different audiences. This may include (for example) social workers, people with lived experience of social work and social work students
• co-produced and co-facilitated with people with lived experience

Sessions must be free for people to attend.

For inspiration, potential contributors can view sessions that took place at previous Social Work Weeks on Social Work England’s YouTube channel.

Find out more and contribute to Social Work Week.

Tickets will be available for Social Work Week in the New Year

People interested in attending Social Work Week 2025 can also sign up to Social Work England’s newsletter to hear first about when the programme and tickets will be released.