This project ended on 31st December 2022.
An increasingly urgent social issue is the rise of inequalities amongst inhabitants of European cities. Due to processes of migration, urbanization and the unequal accumulation of economic growth in many urban areas, cities have become intersections of social stratification. Social workers deal with the challenges of these inequalities every day.
On a European level, social workers tend to take the urban context for granted. While social work in urban areas has long been a topic of interest to researchers, very few social workers are educated to relate to and meet the challenges of the ‘Urban Age’.
Yet, if we wish to generate opportunities for socially sustainable lives, there is an urgency to educate social workers to be knowledgeable about the ways in which cities create, and are created by, social issues and inequality. In short, there is a need for a paradigm shift in urban social work.
Urban SOS brings together educational institutions and work place organizations—who work in the cities with social issues caused by life in the City. The objective of the Urban SOS partnership is to contribute to the transnational and transdisciplinary innovation of European social work and social work education.
The outputs
- A framework for phronetic urban social work: mapping and analysing the intersections between urbanisation, lived experiences and social issues in the partner cities.
- Train the educators program: producing a program to train social work educators to understand and teach the new paradigm for urban social work.
- Online training course for professionals: producing innovative education methods and professional approaches.
- Online learning platform.
Project partners
Transnational project partners:
- Stichting Hogeschool van Amsterdam (Netherlands)
- Kobenhavns professionshojskole (Denmark)
- Arteveldehogeschool (Belgium)
- Stichting Arkin (Netherlands)
- Stichting Combiwel Amsterdam (Netherlands)
- Kofoeds Skole (Denmark)
- vzw CAW Oost-Vlaanderen (Belgium)
- University of Padova (Italy)
Domestic project partners:
- Kalliola Settlement
- Helsinki Pride
- Familia
- Helsinki Missio
- MIITTI Project
The international web page of the project (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences)
Photo: Anu Ipatti
Welcome to the seminar: Who has the right to the city?
Registration is now open: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=3uMQgLTdJ0isyYHuLUA22btJXlyAZHhIuGk1VldmeCZUOTBLRk1URkVDWTdPQlRIWkhNWDk5WjZTUS4u
First podcast from Urban SOS: Faces of Urbanisation, Naapurituottajat as city actors
The Urban SOS project’s podcast series starts with the first episode: Naapurituottajat as city actors. Oili Paaskoski from Kalliola Settlement’s Naapurituottajat (Neighborhood Producers) project shares how Naapurituottajat is linked to the Urban SOS project and how both material and social urbanization are affecting people in Helsinki, especially among people who have a substance abuse background. Tiina Lehto-Lundén and Heli Määttänen, project workers from the Urban SOS -project, facilitate the discussion. Discussion is in Finnish.
You can listen the podcast for example in Spotify under Metropodia.
Article: Urban spaces in the time of Covid-19
Urban SOS Metropolia project workers Leigh Anne Rauhala, Tiina Lehto-Lundén and Heli Määttänen wrote an article Urban spaces in the time of Covid-19 (pdf). In the article they give a social interactions perspective on the current Covid-19 pandemic, with a focus on social services in the urban context.
Contact information
Project Manager Tiina Lehto-Lundén
tel. + 358 40 641 8256
tiina.lehto-lunden [at] metropolia.fi (tiina[dot]lehto-lunden[at]metropolia[dot]fi)
Project Worker Leigh Anne Rauhala
tel. +358 40 641 8195
leigh.rauhala [at] metropolia.fi (leigh[dot]rauhala[at]metropolia[dot]fi)
Project Worker Heli Määttänen
tel. +358 40 668 1911
heli.maattanen [at] metropolia.fi (heli[dot]maattanen[at]metropolia[dot]fi)
