Saqqummersitaq

Greenland is on the one hand a unique case of independent Arctic social policy development and social work education. On the other hand, severe social challenges are still evident in the form of violence towards women, youth suicide (perhaps the highest in the world), and low levels of child welfare.

This paper presents, for the first time, a coherent 50-year historical timeline starting with the National Council’s (Landsrådet) administration of social and labour market affairs in 1968, before the Home Rule Act of 1979 - concluding by examining current social policies anno 2018. It is discussed how social challenges, as listed above, can be linked to previous administration’s struggle to anchor the social work profession to social policy development.

In Greenland, the social work education began in 1985. Today, social workers are graduating with a bachelor-degree in accordance with The Bologna Process. However, as a profession, the Greenlandic social workers are still not organized in a labour union. This poses an essential problem in terms of being able to express a voice from a professional point of view in the social political debate.

Across the Arctic the Greenlandic case is rare in regards to the historic formation of an indigenous people’s administration of social policies. This is only in the making in neighboring countries.

Finally, the paper discusses the relation between an independent social work education, the necessity for a social worker labour union and the forming of future Arctic social policies.

Previous social and public health research has documented a range of issues concerning vulnerability in different groups that could be target groups for vulnerability prevention actions. A research collaboration between Red Cross Greenland (Kalaallit Røde Korsiat), Red Cross Iceland and the University of Greenland has partnered to, through mixed methods studies, identify potential vulnerable groups in Greenland. Red Cross Greenland will use the study as an indication of where to proceed with future social action. From a research point of view, we get a national perspective of which groups the geographically wide spread Greenlandic population across social classes perceive as the main vulnerable groups.

MIXED METHODS
The main research instrument of the vulnerability study is a questionnaire which was applied to a representative study including 1.000 respondents (total adult population: 40.000). This was combined with focus group interviews: 8 different focus groups across the country. Finally, we reached out, nationwide, to formal and informal experts to get their perspectives on vulnerable groups.

The joint research effort has accumulated a substantial amount of data on ‘vulnerability’ in different formats (including both quantitative and qualitative data), and gathered by applying different research methods. The data enable us to identify, analyse conditions and perceptions of vulnerability and, furthermore, discuss public as well as volunteer sector strategies and approaches towards vulnerable groups.