SWU Assignment: World Social Work Day Student Essay Competition

BUEN VIVIR: shared future for transformative change | World Social Work Day, 19th March 2024, #WSWD2024 | IFSW, Social Workers Union (SWU)

SWU Assignment: World Social Work Day Essay Competition 2024


The winners for the 2024 competition have been selected.

Congratulations to Adeola Ojora of the University of York, Isabel Lockwood of Manchester Metropolitan University, Naomi Winnifrith of Oxford Brookes University, and Sana Sultana Doctor of Staffordshire University who wrote the winning essays!

Each year the Social Workers Union seeks to challenge and engage students and apprentices with the SWU Assignment — an essay competition for World Social Work Day in which we pose questions about current issues in social work.

The competition is open to Social Work Students undertaking an Undergraduate or Post Graduate Social Work Degree in the UK and to Social Work Apprentices. All completed assignments are judged by a Panel. Up to four of the most compelling arguments within the word limit of 750-1000 words win a grant of £500 each.

The SWU Assignment question for 2024 was:

“Why does reflective supervision matter in social work? How does it support social worker wellbeing and practice?”

Click here to download the four winning essays as a PDF.

John McGowan, General Secretary of SWU, said,

“I am delighted in the interest shown in this assignment. This topic of ‘Reflective Supervision’ and the importance of this for social workers appears to have been very popular this year and resonated with student social workers and apprentices who submitted quality entries.”

“SWU is proud to have worked on the recent Reflective Supervision Best Practice Guide and as a union to promote the importance of supervision. It is good to see that future social workers have a deep understanding of this, and this is important for new social workers.”

You are invited to meet the markers for the 2024 SWU Assignment and can find the details of the 2024 essay competition here.

Previous SWU Assignment winners

Are you interested in reading the brilliant essays that have impressed the panel judges in previous years? Here is a list of all the winning SWU Assignment essays to date: