A kick off meeting in Palermo

Sitting in the sun, overlooking Mondello bay, with the murmuring water nearby, I’m (pen) writing the first draft of this blog post. A day of relaxation, dearly needed to “recuperate” after yesterday’s full meeting day. "Full" meaning first of all, full of information to absorb and process, and secondly, a full day's work, ending at 5.30 pm.
A new European project brought me to Palermo, Italy for the kick off meeting together with two of my CMV colleagues Hans and Eveline.
On Saturday January 23rd, at the Centre for Creative Development (CSC), Centro Danilo Dolci (where we were actually offered the real Italian “dolci” !) all the European partner organisations convened. We were also joined by two delegates from the Swiss Adult Learning Information Centre and later on by our external evaluator from the University of Palermo. We gathered to walk through all the details of the work ahead of us for the coming 24 months’ run of the project. Actually a little less, as we have lost some time over being accepted by the EU commission as a replacement for a Greek partner who dropped out, just when the project was about to start.
To educate is to make possible the discovery of life, EDDILI for short, is a multilateral Grundtvig project within the Lifelong Learning Programme framework of the EU. Some of the project objectives are: to share the reciprocal maieutic approach, a methodology developed by Danilo Dolci), to support adult learning staff to learn transversal knowledge, skills and attitudes through the use of the methodology and to increase the quality of adult learning.
Looking back on the first day, my head is full of impressions. Of the trainers and other coordinators involved, of the potential of the reciprocal maieutic approach method, of the opportunities to train adult learning staff, of the possible results and impact on our own CMV study programme and our students. But also of the positive working atmosphere with all the people of CSC and CESIE, the two Italian organizations that organised this kick off meeting, and the other project partners from Cyprus, Germany, Spain and Switzerland. And not to be forgotten our external evaluator who interestingly pointed out to us that Facebook could also be a good medium of collaboration and dissemination, especially when creating a network for the adult learning staff.
All in all, a wonderful starting day to the project !
Back home in the cold, minus 5 degrees, I'm uploading my pictures to flickr.com to add a visual dimension to this post.

EDDILI Project Description

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This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This blog post reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained herein.

Study and Placements abroad

This week our CMV year 2 students got detailed information about opportunities for studying abroad or going on a placement abroad.
For that purpose I had prepared a powerpoint presentation with essential information. Again it proved to be such a rewarding task to really delve into the materials I had stored on my computer about previous placements abroad. I'm still glad that all of the students that take the international jump compose a report or a PPT presentation for the next bunch of students. To read about their wonderful experiences was so enjoyable and really brings you in the mood to tell an enthusiastic story to the next group.
This time I had decided to literally take over some of the comments and advice that students had recorded after their experiences abroad. Who better to listen to than the students themselves? Here's the resulting presentation for further reference.

Voorlichting Studie En Stage Buitenland

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Encouraging call from the UK

Yesterday a mail in my in box alerted me to the fact that the UK is in dire need of social workers. A social work recruitment agency had sent out a mailing approaching me about recruitment of social workers: "Work in the UK" and "We help you" the brochure in the attachment announced.
In fact the agency which has been running for 6 years now recruits social pedagogues from Europe, predominantly Germany, as well as Austria, Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands and Spain. What an interesting development ! Especially in the light of the internationalisation of our curriculum.
Although there is still some scepticism from different sides about how international developments are impacting on the social work field, there is no doubt that we live in a globally interdependent world and that some are already taking advantage of this by recruiting staff outside their own country. In the world of business this has been going on for quite a number of years, but it's still relatively new in the social work field.
John Dewey said: "If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow". Indeed higher education institutes have a responsibility to educate tomorrow's workforce and since the future is international, we simply must prepare our students for that globally interdependent world.
"When I started working at the Children and Family Services (CAFS) of a Scottish local authority, I soon learned from my international colleagues that Social Pedagogy is not very common in the UK, the USA or Australia. Whereas in Germany Social Pedagogues and Social Workers are employed in the same fields of work, Social Pedagogy, as an independent area within Social Work, with its own concepts, approaches and methods, is only now being discussed in Scotland," writes a German who packed his bags and started working abroad.
This is just one example of many ways in which lecturers can easily integrate international trends in social work curricula as a way of alerting students that there may be a world beyond the Netherlands waiting for them to work in. After all, social work competences do not stop at the border.

visit from Plzen

This week we had visitors from the Czech Republic at our university. It was our turn to receive a group of students within the context of an exchange with the University of West Bohemia.
Here the SPH and Peda students had prepared a full week programme under the guidance of Astrid Delleman. They visited a number of special schools and a community school, but also went to the Hague and admired our miniature Holland in Madurodam, to name just a few of the activities.
Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures when the group was received in the red symposium room on their first day, a day full of introductory talks which were meant to familiarise the Czech students with the Dutch education system and internships among others.
Exchanges like these are wonderful for dialogue among students. Often they open people's eyes for the national peculiarities that so often persist but which you are blind to until someone starts asking questions about the (for you) obvious. Visits like these are always inspiring and good fun for both sides.

Anniversary !

A year ago to this day I started up this international weblog. The first post proudly mentioned that it was BLaID day. And in fact it was that occasion which gave me a push to try out blogging more seriously. I'd had a provisional blog, just to try out, so I was not a complete novice.
But somehow I felt I had no real topic or focus to blog about. Until I realised that my passion was and is internationalisation, and has been for quite a number of years now. So I decided that was going to be the direction I was going to take with the blog.
Looking back on the past year I see that there were 21 posts all in all. For a blogger that's not really much, still it's something.
For me (and others)it's more or less a kind of overview of the international steps that have been taken during the past year. A special year because it was the first year that the School of Social Work made an investment in internationalisation by appointing 4 people to be international coordinators of the 4 different course programmes and to have one overall coordinator.
A major part of the past year was spent on discussing and drawing up a joint policy plan on internationalisation for our school of social work. This was meant to lay the foundation for all kinds of future international steps on a number of fronts.
It also meant finding our place within the school in relation to management, other committees and organisational entities.
In retrospect I can now say we have accomplished quite a lot. This blog however does not fully reflect all that was done, probably just the variety of activities that go hand in hand with internationalisation.
Let's see what this second year brings! Je maintiendrai !