ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the question, how well does social work travel? Is it a highly contextualised activity that cannot be separated from its time and place, or is it a universal set of principles and practices, with key elements that cross borders and endure through time? The reader will discover that the answer is ‘both’. The chapter explores how social work's identity changes as soon as it crosses borders, even from one community to another, and within communities, too. Social work's constant adaptation to local conditions is shown to be one of its enduring characteristics. The chapter asserts that social work has universal core values of justice (social and economic – and, increasingly, environmental) to combat discrimination, poverty and inequality; and demonstrates how social work's holistic practice, working with the personal and the political, with individuals in their families in their communities and in their societies, is a constant. The chapter shows how social work is in need of refreshment in some parts of the globe and very much alive and well in others.
