Strengthening the social work profession: Experiences from developing and implementing a master’s course in school social work

As one of few in Sweden, a School Social Work course was developed at master level at the Department of Social Work at the University of Gothenburg. It was offered as a part-time and 10-week course. The course´s main objective was to strengthen the school social workers professionalisation and fundament in social work as a discipline. The focus was consequently on organisation, cooperation and professionalisation. The second objective was to create a course of relevance and with an ‘academic product’ to take back to the colleagues. This might further strengthen the confidence and the position of School Social Work as research based as required by the new Social Services Act. The article describes and discusses, with the above-mentioned course as an example, the professionalisation of social work in general, and School Social Work in particular. Based on the discussion the authors formulate some recommendations targeting both practice and academia.