Seoul International Forum on Safety Income 2022, titled “Seeking a new welfare system to accompany the socially vulnerable,” was cohosted by Seoul Metropolitan Government and Seoul Welfare Foundation on December 6, 2022

On December 6, 2022, Seoul Welfare Foundation cohosted a Seoul International Forum on Safety Income 2022 titled “Seeking a new welfare system to accompany the socially vulnerable.” The Forum presented a new welfare project of the Seoul Metropolitan Government developed by Seoul Welfare Foundation(SWF)’s researchers.

Over two hundred audiences participated in the forum and simultaneously sent it out through the youtube channel, and the forum was rerun over nine hundred times by Dec. 14th. The forum drew attention from social workers, civil servants, citizens, and students majoring in social work for information on the innovative approaches to financial equivalence among the Seoulites and financial welfare policies from Germany, Finland, and the U.S.

The forum started with a welcome speech by Se-hoon Oh, the Seoul mayor, followed by congratulatory messages from other organizations. The forum was composed of two sessions. The first session discussed financial welfare cases of different countries. The second session focused on Seoul’s new financial welfare project, "Seoul Safety Income.” There were presentations of Germany, Finland, and the U.S.’s financial welfare cases for the first session. The mayor, Mr. Oh, actively joined a panel for the discussion in the session to present his views on financial welfare.

Professor Robert A Moffitt from Johns Hopkins presented a remarkable speech to begin the second session. In the session, the president of SWF, Mr. Sang Cheol Kim, spoke about the current status of the Seoul Safety Income project. Various feedback and discussions were done during the session. This Seoul international forum on safety income 2022 drew much attention from many social work-related people and rebooted to communicate and cooperate with the global social work field.

2022, Seoul Welfare Foundation cohosted the Joint World Conference on Social Work Education and Social Development 2022(SWESD) on October 26~28, 2022

The Joint World Conference on Social Work Education and Social Development (SWESD) under the theme of “Redefining Social Policy and Social Work Practice in a Post-Pandemic Society: Social Welfare Program and Social Work Education at a Crossroads”—the most significant international conference on social welfare—was held in Seoul, the Republic of Korea, where the event was hosted the Second time. Lasting three days from 26-28 October this year, the conference gathered experts and practitioners from 20 countries to the Garden Hotel Grand Volume Convention Center.

International organizations jointly organized a conference promoting social development and justice, namely the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) and the International Council on Social Welfare (ICSW). SWESD 2022 was hosted by local Korean counterparts dedicated to the same causes: the Korea National Council on Social Welfare, the Korea Association of Social Workers, the Korean Council on Social Welfare Education, and the Seoul Welfare Foundation (SWF).

The three-day program gathered 200 registered participants and consisted of over 130 presentations, during which social workers from all over the world shared and exchanged expert opinions on important social welfare issues

During the opening conference, researchers from Seoul Welfare Foundation presented their studies. The first presenter, dr. Junghyun Kim spoke about “the Significance of Social Welfare Practice in an Era of Post-COVID-19: In the case of Seoul Welfare Foundation.” Dr. Soo-Young Lee was the second presenter to speak about her research, “Perceptional Differences between Welfare Specialist Team leaders and Administration-based Team leaders in conducting welfare tasks: Focusing on the civil servants in charge of Social Welfare at the Visiting Community Service Center.” In the packed conference room, they pronounced the solutions they had formulated to resolve the issue explored in their presentation.

Besides the opening conference, three researchers from SWF, Meehyun Kim, Soonsung Lee, and Hyunseung Kim, presented their studies in the Korean session.

On top of presentations and discussions, homepage visitors were also given the opportunity to learn more about Seoul Welfare from the SWESD homepage at the site of posters that presented the results of studies undertaken by researchers from different parts of the world to examine various aspects in the field of social work. Songhee Lee and Seungju Hong from SWF posted their studies in the poster session.

Seoul Welfare Foundation, one of the main hosts for the event, held a dinner party for the participants. The deputy mayor of Seoul, Mr. Shin-hwan Oh, celebrated the joint world conference by announcing an opening message at the event.

In all, the great turnout and participation saw at the conference. Indeed, the conference was a great success, producing meaningful dialogues and receiving favorable feedback from presenters and the audience alike.