Introduction

This book consists of four sections that address different aspects that are important to European social and caring welfare professions: knowledge, reflection and identity in the social and caring welfare professions; control, regulation and management; collaboration, conflict and competition; and assessment, negotiation and decision making. In this final chapter, we concentrate on a number of key issues from the book's various contributions to see what we can learn from them. The expression that ‘Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future’ is usually attributed to the Danish physicist Niels Bohr. With this reservation in mind, we declare that we have tried to take a look into the ‘crystal ball’, by spotting trends and tendencies that simultaneously say something about the current situation and offer a hint about future developments.

In the prior chapters, researchers from different countries and academic disciplines have tackled a number of queries and issues that are of concern for understanding the situation of current European social and caring welfare professions. We do not suggest that these queries have been given definite answers or that every important aspect has been examined. We believe, however, that the various contributions offer new insights about current welfare professions and their practices in a number of European welfare states.

This chapter begins with a discussion regarding a theme that is emphasised in several of the book's contributions and thus appears particularly crucial. One of the strongest trends in the book is the central, and maybe increasingly important, role that individual welfare states have in relation to social and caring welfare professions. Several authors point to what is probably a new phenomenon, at least regarding its prevalence – namely, that we still lack the proper conceptual and theoretical frameworks for understanding. In other words, the state sometimes instantaneously creates entirely new professions alongside established professions, or creates entirely new organisational and administrative forms that suddenly abolish or change existing professional jurisdictions.

This discussion is followed by a section that concentrates on social and caring welfare professionals’ identity, and how identities may be in a state of flux, as a result of different forms of state involvement. The chapter then addresses various struggles and conflicts between different professional groups in new organisational settings, as well as emerging conflicts between welfare professions and the state.