Faculty mission

The core tasks of the Faculty are education and research.

Through undergraduate, graduate and permanent education, the Faculty offers knowledge and training for professional tasks and performances in social care and other fields where the knowledge and skills of social workers are needed.

Through research it contributes to the science of social work and advances the profession. It conducts basic and applied research and developmental projects, publishes research findings, implements them in practice and proposes pertinent policies.



Introduction to the Faculty

In Slovenia, social work education has been in existence for over half a century. The School for Social Workers was established in 1955 as a two-year diploma programme. In the 1970s it was integrated into the University of Ljubljana. It developed a four-year university-level programme and launched postgraduate specialisation programmes in 1992. From 1995 until the end of the complicated transformation of the University of Ljubljana it was again reduced to a professional school with a four-year programme, untill in 2003 it became a faculty and introduced graduate study programmes.

Ever since its establishment the School (as it is still unofficially called) has been a pillar (in some periods the only one) of the development of Slovenian social work and the field of social care in general.

Teaching is based on scientific research. The Faculty has produced basic forms and methods of contemporary social work such as counselling, group work, community work, and work with families. Its achievements in voluntary work, action research, and qualitative research in general have played an important part in Slovenian social sciences. It has developed work with older people, women, young people, people in mental distress, disabled people, and ethnic minorities and contributed to innovations such as social first aid, home help, group homes, safe houses, and others. 

The Faculty constitutes a community of lecturers, students, former students, and practitioners. Its integration of practice and teaching allows for the immediate linking of work experience to theoretical reflection, which has been instrumental in the development of an elaborate concept of continuous education. 

A significant part of study at the Faculty involves practical work and training in social work methods and skills. Students are involved in practical, research and developmental projects throughout their studies

Through its network of contacts across the world the Faculty has coordinated or participated in many international projects. It is a member of the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) and the European Association of Schools of Social Work (EASSW), the initiator of the Eastern European Subregional Association of Schools of Social Work (EEsrSSW), member of the International Consortium for Social Development (ICSD) and member of European Social Network (ESN)

The Faculty publishes an academic journal of Social Work (Socialno delo), and a number of monographs and other books every year.