Challenges and Opportunities for Social Work’s Next Century

Rising inequality, declining trust in institutions, and the rapid expansion of AI are among the many challenges reshaping the spaces where social work operates. The profession has long played a vital role in advancing human rights, strengthening families and communities, and building effective policy, and systems of protection, care, and opportunity. Today’s challenges demand fresh thinking about how it does so.

Join the Center for Social Development and the Brown School Global Programs Office for a timely conversation with Antoinette Lombard, President of the International Association of Schools of Social Work and Professor Emeritus at the University of Pretoria, and Dorian Traube, the Neidorff Family and Centene Corporation Dean of the Brown School and Professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Together, they will explore two defining questions for the profession’s next century:

• Renewal of the social contract: What will it take to strengthen trust and shared responsibility between individuals and institutions, and what role can social work play in that project?”
• Renewal of social work education: How shall we train the next generation of social workers to meet a rapidly changing world?

The discussion will be moderated by Michael Sherraden, founder and Co-Director of the Center for Social Development and the George Warren Brown Distinguished University Professor at Washington University.

Lunch will be provided.