Social work education in Albania: a developing landscape of challenges and opportunities

Abstract

ABSTRACT The social work profession in Albania is relatively young and social services in the country continue to develop. But over the past three decades, Albania has experienced significant growth and transformation in its social work education programmes. Nevertheless, there is very little published work on the Albanian social work education system and its implementation on the ground. Currently, the main sources of social work graduates are three Schools of Social Work in Tirana, Shkodra, and Elbasan. Programmes at the bachelor's and master's level all incorporate policy, research, and practice education. The social work curriculum, originally transplanted from the United States, has gone through reforms following the Bologna process and continues to be revised to meet local needs. Drawing from a multi-country study of the social service workforce in southeast Europe, this paper presents baseline data on social work education in Albania. 62 participants were interviewed using semi-structured interviews, case stories, and focus group discussions with consensus-building exercises. The findings highlight both the opportunities and challenges of this relatively young profession in Albania. Besides increasing understandings of social work education in Albania, this research adds to emerging regional and global themes in the development of social work education and practice.