The development of an ethnically sensitive approach in social work in Slovenia

The paper presents an ethnically sensitive approach in social work within the Slovenian context. The main focus of an ethnically sensitive approach is an anti-racist perspective and is based on the critical analysis of processes that maintain the status quo in social work with members of ethnic groups. This approach also involves user perspectives with particular emphasis on the views and experiences of ethnic group members and with a particular interest in how they perceive social work services and how social work services meet their needs. Despite the rise of anti-racist social work education in Anglo-Saxon countries in the 1980s, the Slovenian system of social work education remains without adequate literature on this field. The author suggests that practice in the field of social work with minority ethnic groups is often racist, especially when social service users are members of the Roma ethnic group.