Future-ready Social Worker

FOREWORD and CONTENTS

Social work is at a turning point. The demands placed upon it are rising, the conditions in which many practitioners work remain deeply challenging, and the questions being asked of it are harder than ever. Having spent years in the international spaces where these questions are debated, I have become convinced of one thing: the future of social work will not be written only in the places where it has traditionally been discussed. It will increasingly be shaped by emerging voices in parts of the world to which the profession’s mainstream has sometimes been slow to listen.

That is why this book matters, and why I was glad to be asked to introduce it.

The Future-Ready Social Worker is a book about survival and ambition and, unusually, it refuses to treat them as opposites. Daniel Adeagbo and Ogechi Ogbodo write from within a profession that asks a great deal of its people and often gives too little back. They understand the realities of unpaid placements, precarious work and the quiet expectation that those who care for others should not expect to be cared for themselves. What they do with that reality is one of the book’s most significant contributions. Rather than accept it as noble suffering, they argue that financial dignity is not a betrayal of the profession’s calling but an important condition for sustaining it. Social workers who are not consumed by their own insecurity are better able to serve others. It is a claim the profession has often been reluctant to make aloud, and these authors make it plainly.

They pair that honesty with ambition. This is a book that asks social workers to lift their eyes and to see themselves not only at the frontline, essential as that work is, but also in the rooms where policy is made and systems are shaped. Maintaining a strong presence at both individual and structural levels is essential if the profession is to respond effectively to an increasingly complex world. The authors make that case with conviction.

What I value most, however, is the voice. This is not a distant textbook. It is written by emerging voices who remain close to the realities they describe, who name their own fatigue and doubts, and who write for the student and early-career worker wondering whether this path can sustain a life as well as a conscience. The closing essay, in particular, is a candid and generous reflection on why the humanities, and social work within them, remain indispensable even when the market struggles to recognise their value.

Readers should take this book for what it is: not a final word, but an honest and hopeful one, offered by two emerging voices rooted in social work. Not every reader will agree with every argument, and the profession’s conversation is richer for that. But anyone who reads it will come away with a clearer sense that social work can be both a calling and a livelihood, both compassionate and courageous, both local in its roots and global in its reach.

That is a message the profession needs, and I am pleased to see it coming from these voices, from this place, at this time.

I commend it to you.

23 August 2026

Dr Pascal Rudin

Interim Secretary-General and Principal Representative to the United

Nations, IFSW

Research Fellow, Stellenbosch University

Contents

Foreword ............................................................................................................v

Acknowledgment ..............................................................................................................................................vii

Chapter One: Understanding the Helping Profession..................................................... 1

Chapter Two: Future-Ready Social Workers....................................................................... 3

Chapter Three: The Future of Social Work....................................................................... 7

Chapter Four: The Business of Social Work..................................................................... 10

Chapter Five: Career Expressions in Social Work........................................................... 13

Chapter Six: Guaranteeing Labour Justice..................................................................... 16

Chapter Seven: The Impact and Profit Question..................................................... 17

Chapter Eight: Self-Care Is a Professional Responsibility............................................. 18

Chapter Nine: Personal Security for Social Workers...................................................... 19

Chapter Ten: Digital Transformation in Social Work................................................ 20

Conclusion: A person essay on the humanities and social work..............................................................21