Introduction

Organisation

This conference focuses on professionals and academics working in the social fields. Their working areas include care and welfare, housing corporations, police and government agencies, vocational schools, universities and academic institutions.

Professionals in the social domain frequently deal with a demand for increased expediency and effectiveness in their actions. The pressure to work in a more far-reaching, disciplined and trouble-counteracting manner has increased considerably recently. More than ever, technological innovations and information exchange through integrated 'care chains' make this possible. New methods develop, seemingly shifting normative boundaries. Current examples include forced parenting training, subjecting students to urine tests as part of a policy against drugs, serious intervention teams, temporary housing restraining orders for aggressors, and trained "buddy's" who offer social support and control for pedophile ex-convicts after they finish their sentence.

How do these developments relate to prevailing views and methods where professionals approach people from a respectful and sympathetic angle, using a personal context and their existing environment? Can they still use their professional background and methods as a measuring point when it comes to a client's personal integrity and right to privacy? Or should they no longer want this?

During the conference, questions such as 'under what conditions are far-reaching social interventions required and justifiable?' and 'When are humanitarian, legal and ethical borders crossed?' will take center stage. How can professionals deal with the tension between general interest and the interest of their client? Between enforcement and assistance, taking action or providing support, repression and compassion? The conference aims to avoid taking sides, by entering into dialogue based on different standpoints, by making dilemmas and ambivalence discussable, and having a much-needed exchange between science, policy and reality.

The Congress Sooner, deeper, more compellingly, more comprehensively delves into these issues by offering scientific knowledge and heavy debates. Additionally, round table discussions will have congress participants discuss methods while searching for solution trajectories.