Entreprise’s Social Work: Pratices, Possibilities and Challenges

Despite the fact that in the 1960s and 1970s, corporate social work became one of the most attractive sectors with the greatest employment possibilities for social workers, the reduction in its scope of action that began to be seen in the 1990s and, consequently, the loss of space for social workers to intervene in this field, has meant that the knowledge we have today about entreprises as a socio-professional space for social workers is still incipient, providing little data on the real movement of social workers’ work in this field, with an even greater lack of in-depth content on the work process developed by Social Work in this context, justifying the relevance of current and in-depth studies in this area of knowledge. It is a fact that in recent years some studies in this field have begun to emerge in Portugal, as a result of the recognition of the profound changes in the labor market, the flexibilization of labor relations, associated with the exacerbation of the needs and problems related to the world of work and the reduction of the Welfare State, and which has opened up space, as in other historical moments, to bring (again) to the fore Entreprise’s Social Work and a more present action on the part of these professionals in the field of work. In order to assess this and other possibilities for intervention in the field of entreprises , this project sought to collect information from entreprises social workers in order to find out: a) areas of intervention; b) professional roles; c) social projects developed; d) challenges and constraints to intervention, and to draw up a profile of the company social worker, as well as to find out about their practices and possibilities for intervention.