Community work: its establishment and sustainable design

Community work offers complex options for Social Work action that rely on a broad spectrum of theories, approaches, and methods. Contrary to individual casework or working with groups, community work is active in larger social contexts and promotes topics across target group boundaries that address different actors in the social space. Its objective is to counteract social injustices, strengthen societal and social participation, and promote democratization processes. One challenge is the activation of participatory potentials.

In the winter semester 2022, a master project was launched that develops community projects for St. Pölten and implements them together with local cooperation partners, for example within the framework of the “Tangente 2024” culture festival. Between April and October 2024, a big festival of a strongly sociocultural and community nature will take place.

The new master project follows on from this previous work and results. The collaboration between the two projects allows the students to engage in intensive exchange with students from higher semesters and to make use of knowledge already compiled.

In this context, the participants address two questions: How can self-organized community work and spatial development across target groups be sustainably established in small and medium-sized towns? And which findings can the developed town and district projects on community work generate with regard to the following topic areas: post-migrant living spaces, social inclusion of marginalized groups, the cooperation of Social Work with art and culture, and the promotion and handling of diversity?