Title Participants "Warm solidarity in the Belgian homelessness policy assemblage during the coronavirus pandemic" "Koen Hermans" "Geef dak- en thuislozen een adres" "Laure-lise Robben, Koen Hermans" "Applying transdisciplinary sustainability transitions research in international social work doctoral training" "Koen Hermans" "Development of an intervention (PICASO) to optimise the palliative care capacity of social workers in Flanders: a study protocol based on phase I of the Medical Research Council framework" "Brent Taels, Kirsten Hermans, Chantal Van Audenhove, Koen Hermans, Anja Declercq" "INTRODUCTION: An important challenge for future palliative care delivery is the growing number of people with palliative care needs compared with the limited qualified professional workforce. Existing but underused professional potential can further be optimised. This is certainly the case for social work, a profession that fits well in multidisciplinary palliative care practice but whose capacities remain underused. This study aims to optimise the palliative care capacity of social workers in Flanders (Belgium) by the development of a Palliative Care Program for Social Work (PICASO). METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This protocol paper covers the steps of the development of PICASO, which are based on phase I of the Medical Research Council framework. However, additional steps were added to the original framework to include more opportunities for stakeholder involvement. The development of PICASO follows an iterative approach. First, we will identify existing evidence by reviewing the international literature and describe the problem by conducting quantitative and qualitative research among Flemish social workers. Second, we will further examine practice and identify an appropriate intervention theory by means of expert panels. Third, the process and outcomes will be depicted in a logic model. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval for this study was given by the KU Leuven Social and Societal Ethics Committee (SMEC) on 14 April 2021 (reference number: G-2020-2247-R2(MIN)). Findings will be disseminated through professional networks, conference presentations and publications in scientific journals." "Exploring the Usefulness and Validity of Democratic Professionalism for Social Work Practice: A Cross-National Qualitative Case Study" "Michelle van der Tier" "Democratic professionalism challenges social workers to see social institutions as potential fields for democratic action and to act as bridge agents between citizens and social institutions. Although scholars have identified democratic professionalism as a promising theory, the relevance of this approach has hardly been empirically explored and operationalised in social work practice. To address this gap, this article explores empirical examples of bridging practices in social welfare organisations and private shelter organisations in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Data were gathered by means of a mixed method design (interviews N13, and focus groups N10). Based on our case analysis, we identify three types of practices that aim to close the gap between citizens and social institutions: task-sharing with citizens; raising public awareness about social issues and facilitating a public dialogue about social issues in close proximity to the lives of citizens. We found indications that the policy environment shapes both the relationship between social institutions and society, and social workers’ actions and beliefs. Although we conclude that democratic professionalism is a promising theory for social work, more research is needed to further substantiate our findings and to explore the relevance of other aspects of democratic professionalism for social work practice." "In Search of Social justice-informed Services: A Research Agenda for the Study of Resistance to Neo-managerialism" "Koen Hermans" "Social workers as state and citizen-agents. How social workers in a German, Dutch and Flemish public welfare organisation manage this dual responsibility in practice" "Michelle van der Tier" "Het analyseren van verantwoordingspraktijken vanuit een micro-institutionele en relationele lens. Een cross-nationale casestudie naar verantwoordingspraktijken in het sociaal werk." "Michelle van der Tier" "Based on a review of the social work literature, we identified three gaps in research onaccountability:1. The conceptualisation of accountability is one-sidedly framed in new publicmanagement theory. This is problematic in two ways. Firstly, new public managementdoes not provide a solution for accountability of social work practice. It underminesthe professionalism of social workers and is a bad fit with the relational and complexnature of practice. Secondly, this biased conceptualisation disregards the fact thataccountability is more than an element of new public management.2. Current studies mainly explore accountability practices at the organisational level.Because of this organisational focus, social workers' agency in the accountabilityprocess is not taken into account. How social workers give meaning to the differentaccountability relations in their daily work and how they deal with the dilemmas andtensions that arise from multiple and conflicting perspectives are questions thatremain unanswered.3. Current research is mainly conducted in Anglo-Saxon contexts. Because of the lack ofcomparative research, little is known about how divergent institutional configurationsinteract with accountability practices of social workers (M ller, 2019; Pollit &Bouckaert, 2011). In other words, the complex interplay between the street andinstitutional levels remains a black box.We address these gaps by broadening the conceptualisation of accountability, exploring howsocial workers give meaning to the three types of accountabilities and moral dilemmas inpractice, and by applying a comparative, micro-institutional research approach.We broadened the conceptualisation by defining accountability as a central feature ofprofessionalism and an important precondition for institutional democracy, and developing arelational conceptualisation that reflects the multiple accountability relations in social work.By exploring the accountability actions and beliefs of social workers in a public organisationand social workers in a private organisation across three cases, we provide insight into howsocial workers give meaning to the three types of accountability relations, as well as into their moral agency in relation to the moral dilemmas they are confronted with as a result ofconflicting expectations.We deployed a comparative, micro-institutional research design to systematically capturemacro level institutions, such as social workers' professional identity and organisationalcharacteristics, that frame and/or restrict social workers' actions and beliefs and are shapedby social workers' agency. This helped us open the black box of the interplay between streetlevelagency and institutions. By comparing three cross-national cases, we included a varietyof social-political contexts in our analysis, and by using Rice's micro-institutional model wewere able to build a conceptual bridge between the accountability practices of social workers(micro-level) and institutions at meso (organisational policy and culture) and macro levels(social policy).6.2 Research aim and questionsThe central aim of the study is to open up the debate about accountability in social work andcontribute to the theory development on accountability practices in social work. In pursuingthis aim, the study has two research objectives. The first objective is to explore how socialworkers give meaning to the three types of accountabilities across practical contexts. By'meaning', we mean social workers' actions and beliefs (Fairclouth, 2003), and how socialworkers manage the different perspectives of these accountability relations and the tensionsthat arise from them. The second objective is to explore how these actions and beliefs interactwith the institutional context in which social workers are embedded, which we referred toearlier as the micro-macro relationship. To realise this aim, we formulated the following threeresearch questions.Research question 1:Which accountability relations are studied between 2007-2017, and what do thesestudies conclude about the way social workers account for their work in theserelations?Research question 2:How do social workers across different practical contexts account for their work onthe three types of accountability relations?Research question 3:Which micro-institutional attributes can be identified that interact with theaccountability practices of social workers?To address the research questions formulated above, we conducted four research projects.Table 2 at the next page summarizes the main characteristics of these four projects. Eachproject was designed around one of the three types of accountability relations and arounddistinct features of the institutional context, which enabled us to empirically examine themicro-macro relationship.The first project addresses the first and the second research questions. In this project, weconducted a scoping review of empirical studies in nine social work journals, publishedbetween 2007 and 2017. The aim was to scope research findings on the three types ofaccountabilities. We reviewed which types of mechanisms were studied and how they areused by social workers in practice. We also included descriptive information on the types ofmethodology used in the studies and the country in which the studies were conducted.The second, third and fourth research projects addressed the second and third researchquestions with through a cross-national case studies in which we zoomed in on the three typesof accountability relations and specific mechanisms in institutional contexts. In the secondresearch project, we explored the accountability relation between the government-fundedshelter facility, as an example of political-administrative accountability. By building onresource dependence theory, we explored how social workers accounted for their work to thegovernment, and how this was affected by social policy institutions.In the third research project, we explored social workers' accountability relationship withprofessional peers and professional standards, as an example of professional accountability.We used Maynard-Moody & Musheno's (2013) theory of 'citizen and state narratives' toexamine how the social workers of a local welfare organisation navigated between bothnarratives, and how this was affected by organisational institutions.In the fourth research project, we explored social workers' accountability relationship withcitizens and service users, as an example of participative-democratic accountability. We usedDzur's (2019) theory of democratic professionalism to explore the theoretical validity andpractical usefulness of democratic professionalism for social work. We searched for empiricalexamples of democratic professionalism in our cross-national case study data. Morespecifically, we searched for examples that show how democratic professionals can bridge thegap between citizens and social institutions. We also explored how these democratic practicesare affected by distinct features of the policy environment (macro-level)." "De vele invullingen van politisering in het sociaal werk" "Koen Hermans" "(Re-)Imagining Neighbourhood Spaces from a Transdisciplinary, Inclusive Research Perspective: The Vaartkom Case" "Ziloy Croughs, Koen Hermans" "Cities and dense urban areas are dynamic environments, always adapting to changing circumstances and shocks, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic. The Vaartkom (or the Canal Bowl in English), a neighbourhood in Leuven, provides an interesting case study, having undergone a drastic transformation in the past two decades from a dilapidated industrial zone to mixed neighbourhood and cultural hotspot. This has introduced renewed and ongoing community dynamics, which inevitably influences the use of public and private space in the neighbourhood, creating new areas for inclusion and exclusion. This threefold transdisciplinary research focuses first on the spatial dynamics on the level of public space under COVID-19 as part of a wider series of neighbourhood dynamics. Second, it dives into the aspect of inclusive environments and third, it uses the transdisciplinary research process to reflect on a meta-level. Employing various methods – such as interviews, site visits, stakeholder and physical mapping exercises, we worked with community members to explore these spatial dynamics. Our findings highlight the conflicting expectations about the present and future use of public space. These opposing opinions reveal the tensions that exist among community members about how public spaces are used and whom they are for. This suggests there are multiple understandings of the Vaartkom. These multiple understandings were drawn from responses collected during a public engagement activity, which were subsequently analysed in a thematic and spatial way. This analysis brought forward influences of a temporal and spatial nature – that is, we acknowledge that the selected locations at which we engaged with community members, and the time of day, played a role in who we reached in the community and the responses we collected. This highlights the degree of awareness and participatory effort required to be truly inclusive. We therefore propose that future engagements involve the creation of a “Third Sphere” – a space for open, transparent and neutral dialogue – allowing the opportunity not only to imagine a collective future, but also to build bridges and help community members feel heard and empowered to contribute to the creation of a more inclusive post-COVID-19 environment."