The narrative of social work does not save lives; its strategic and operational preparation does
I. The Disconnection of Social Work from Social Reality
In Spain, social work has lost—indeed, lacks—an essential function: preparing society to face collective risks, crises, and threats that go beyond everyday life. In the 21st century, following the war in Ukraine and amid the growing threat of hybrid and conventional conflicts in Europe, professionals in the field, trapped in bureaucracy, administrative protocols, and academic competition, have turned the profession into a safe refuge for comfort and self-promotion.
This is not a matter of ignorance: it is a matter of active indifference toward the continent’s security. Spanish social workers rarely educate or mobilize citizens regarding collective responsibility, resilience, or strategic crisis preparedness. When hybrid threats, cyberattacks, covert operations, or war scenarios are discussed, the response is often silence, evasion, or improvised volunteerism. Meanwhile, as Europe watches anxiously, Spain remains unmobilized, leaving the defense of society dependent on delayed reactions and chance, or outsourcing all social responsibility to Civil Protection and the Red Cross.
Universities and professional social work associations: institutionalized civil demobilization
University education in social work has not been innocuous: it has consolidated the disconnection between theory and practice, between the classroom and the society it should protect. The profession has become a safe landing for social scientists who could not find a place in their original disciplines, devoting their hours and energy to academic labyrinths that have little to do with community defense. The priority is unmistakable and transparent: publications, conferences, tenure, and chairs.
Social intervention, conceived as a tool for cohesion and civic preparedness, has degenerated into an instrument of personal promotion and academic self-preservation for a legitimate goal: securing a tenured position. The unavoidable question is: should it be this way? It seems not. Social work must be equipped with a theoretical arsenal to make practice effective, but the theoretical background must never serve a masturbatory intellectual pursuit disconnected from reality in the realms of war, disasters, attacks, and sabotage.
Ryszard Kapuściński’s message to journalists is extrapolatable to social scientists, especially Social Workers and Educators: …cynics are useless in this profession…
The effect is devastating and silent: theory without practice, knowledge without action, studies without tangible consequences. Citizens do not learn to assume collective responsibilities; habits of preparedness, risk awareness, and resilience culture are not formed. Society, when faced with any crisis—terrorist attacks, pandemics, natural disasters, and now hybrid and conventional conflicts emerging from Ukraine—reacts late, improvised, with fleeting volunteerism and symbolic gestures that simulate commitment.
Meanwhile, Europe observes, and the threat does not wait. The absence of practice turns civil security into an uncertain luxury; academic knowledge remains in offices and conferences, unable to translate into social strength. Thus, social work in Spain, as it is currently conceived, leaves society vulnerable, dependent on delayed reactions and chance, when what is required is training, preparation, and sustained civic conviction.
Professional social work associations, far from correcting these deviations, have institutionalized them. Instead of demanding practical training, civic preparedness, and commitment to social resilience, they limit themselves to safeguarding protocols, certifications, and administrative routines. They act more as unions of professional comfort than as guardians of the common good. They ensure that members comply with bureaucratic rules and academic expectations, but they do not oversee society’s preparedness for real crises: attacks, pandemics, natural disasters, or hybrid and conventional wars already knocking on Europe’s door following Ukraine.
The result is a vicious circle: universities producing theory without practice, professionals seeking titles and recognition, and associations validating this dynamic, consolidating civil demobilization. While the world burns around us, citizens remain unarmed against threats, and those responsible for educating, mobilizing, and preparing remain comfortably on the sidelines. Collective security is sacrificed on the altar of professional routine and institutional self-preservation.
II. Reactive Mobilization: Volunteerism and Posturing
When Spanish society acts in the face of a disaster or threat, it almost always does so too late and without prior preparation. The response does not stem from an internalized civic culture but from the emotional impact of the event. It is improvised volunteerism, and too often, symbolic posturing that confuses the appearance of commitment with the real capacity to resist.
The war in Ukraine is a revealing example. For weeks, the dominant reaction was emotional and superficial: flags on balconies, slogans on social media, institutional statements full of gestures but empty of pedagogy. There was solidarity, yes, but no preparation. No one explained to citizens what a hybrid war in Europe really meant, what implications it had for security, the economy, energy, or social cohesion. Compassion was expressed, but resilience was not built. Emotion was appealed to, but responsibility was not.
This pattern repeats. After terrorist attacks, society focuses on moments of silence and spontaneous gatherings; after natural disasters, on urgent donations and improvised aid chains; after the pandemic, on applause and symbols. All of this has moral value, but none of these gestures substitute for preparation. They are reactive, episodic responses intended to soothe collective conscience, not to strengthen society for the next crisis.
The difference between a prepared society and a fragile society is not measured by the intensity of emotional reaction but by the capacity to act before impact. Spain does not mobilize its citizens before the threat; it calls them when the damage has already been done. It does not educate to resist; it improvises to survive. And surviving is not the same as resisting.
This behavior reveals an uncomfortable truth: the main weakness is not material resources but social education. Resources are not lacking; civic culture is. Without habits of preparedness, prior cohesion, and shared risk awareness, any response is necessarily delayed, fragmented, and dependent on chance. In a context of hybrid wars, disinformation, strategic pressure, and potential conventional conflicts in Europe, this weakness is not a minor flaw: it is a structural vulnerability.
The war in Ukraine should not have served to excite us, but to teach us. Not to display momentary solidarity, but to build collective capacity. Not to react, but to prepare. And as long as that lesson does not translate into civic education, social training, and shared responsibility, Spanish society will continue confusing gesture with strength and delayed reaction with resilience.
III. Social Work: From Delayed Assistance to Conscious Preparedness
If there is a profession called to strengthen a society’s resilience before a crisis arrives, it is social work. Its responsibility is neither secondary nor complementary: it is strategic. Where armies prepare armed defense and institutions design security policies, social work should prepare society itself to withstand the test. However, to fulfill this function, the profession must undergo a radical transformation.
Social work cannot be limited to intervening once the damage is already done. That logic—reactive, assistential, and belated—belongs to a world that no longer exists. In the 21st century, marked by hybrid wars, constant strategic pressure, disinformation, energy crises, pandemics, and natural disasters, social intervention must anticipate the crisis. Preparation today is more important than repair.
This implies, first and foremost, integrating education in resilience and civil preparedness into community programs. Not as an optional add-on, but as a central axis of social intervention. Resilience is not passive resistance or improvised heroism; it is knowledge, habit, and organization. Teaching a community to access accurate information, maintain cohesion under pressure, organize mutual aid networks, and act with social discipline is a profoundly social task, not a military one.
Secondly, social work must cultivate responsible citizens, not merely service users. Prepared citizens do not wait for delayed instructions or external solutions; they understand that collective security is a shared contract. Educating citizens to respond effectively to crises requires instruction in responsibility, self-control, cooperation, and institutional trust. Without these elements, any response will be chaotic, emotional, and fragmented.
Additionally, social work must coordinate structurally with public institutions, civil protection, healthcare, educational services, and civil forces to build real protection and assistance networks—not administrative simulations. These networks must exist before the crisis, be rehearsed, known to the population, and operate without improvisation. Cohesion cannot be decreed at the moment of disaster: it must be built beforehand or it does not exist.
Perhaps the deepest task of social work is to recover the sense of community and shared responsibility, eroded by decades of comfortable individualism and welfare without a pedagogy of sacrifice. Preparing a society is not convincing it that war is inevitable, but that collective fragility is a choice. Beyond the individual and immediate wellbeing, there exists a common good that can only be sustained if the community is willing to protect itself.
Thus, the necessary evolution is clear: from reactive assistentialism to active preparation. This does not mean militarizing society or glorifying conflict, but equipping citizens with tools, habits, and awareness to resist collectively—without panic, without hatred, and without improvisation. A prepared society is not an aggressive society; it is a society that does not collapse.
In the world emerging after Ukraine, the question is no longer whether crises will occur, but whether we will be prepared when they do. And in that response, social work cannot remain a spectator. It must assume its historic role: transforming society into a conscious agent of its own civic defense.
IV. Active Social Work in the Baltic and Nordic Countries: Beyond Rhetoric, Into Action
While in some societies civil preparedness remains a postponed illusion, in the Baltic and Nordic countries social resilience has become a collective duty practiced as public policy and civic commitment. There, social work and community organization are not rhetorical complements but operational instruments of civil security.
In the Baltic Sea region, public administrations, NGOs, and volunteer organizations work in coordination to increase social response capacity in the face of complex crises. Transnational projects such as BYFORES and Civic Education for Resilience of Communities aim to strengthen cooperation between authorities, volunteer sectors, and youth, promoting civic education, risk management, and social awareness as strategic community capabilities. These projects include training, awareness campaigns, volunteer development, and the design of inclusive strategies to address disasters, highlighting the role of society as a whole in risk management beyond traditional boundaries of state intervention.
Red Cross services and civil protection agencies in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have implemented initiatives such as EvRe – Evacuation Ready, an EU-funded project establishing joint operational procedures for preparing and organizing evacuation centers with support services for large-scale emergencies. These interventions—ensuring society is ready to evacuate, assist, and reorganize practically—involve social workers, volunteers, public institutions, and community networks to address everything from natural disasters to humanitarian crises and geopolitical tensions.
In Estonia, the volunteer culture is particularly strong: rescue services include numerous volunteer firefighter brigades operating in rural and urban areas, providing first response in emergencies and serving as a pillar of local resilience. The existence of these structures, supported by national legal and budgetary frameworks, exemplifies how social preparedness is integrated into community life rather than being mere institutional rhetoric.
Simultaneously, initiatives in the Baltic Sea region, such as best-practice exchanges between Estonia and Finland on volunteer management and public–civil cooperation during crises, demonstrate that civil society and authorities do not work in parallel but cooperate to strengthen community preparedness and local support networks. This cross-learning is part of a broader strategy to reinforce social resilience against increasing risks, including hybrid threats that combine social and technological impacts with geopolitical pressure.
In Lithuania, projects like NGOs Equipped for Civic Resilience, supported by Nordic countries, aim to strengthen the operational capacity of social organizations to act in crises alongside authorities. In this approach, social work is not just assistance but a bridge between civil society and the state apparatus, designing mechanisms for community participation and implementing solutions in disruptive scenarios.
Beyond the Baltic countries, in Northern Europe the civil preparedness approach translates into concrete education and organizational actions. Norway, Sweden, and Finland have promoted widely distributed emergency preparedness guides, recommending practical measures such as stockpiling essential supplies, knowing emergency plans, and guidelines for community action during prolonged or intense crises. In Norway, authorities have distributed millions of printed brochures on emergency preparation, including advice on food, medicine, and basic supplies, reinforcing the idea that personal preparedness is part of collective security.
Finland and Sweden have advanced further, articulating a culture of comprehensive security involving systematic social preparedness education through public services, social organizations, and ongoing awareness campaigns. Finland, in particular, combines this approach with a historic network of civil shelters and a shared perception of security as a civic responsibility, extending even to the population’s physical and psychological readiness to face extreme situations.
Additionally, at the regional level, networks engage youth across the Baltic and Nordic regions in resilience, volunteering, and civic education activities, recognizing that early commitment of new generations is key to sustaining a long-term culture of preparedness. International workshops on youth resilience, promoted by organizations such as the National Rescue Association of Finland and the Council of Baltic States, bring together young people and professionals to learn, share experiences, and build cooperative networks that do not rely solely on government decisions but on collective societal action.
V. Poland: Social Work and Civil Resilience in a State Under Tension
In Poland, the experience of being on NATO’s eastern flank, alongside the protracted war in Ukraine and the proximity of the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, has forced both the state and society to rethink how to confront not only conventional threats but also social, hybrid, and community cohesion risks. There, population preparedness is no longer an academic discourse: it is a strategic priority linked to national security and the capacity to withstand severe crises.
In 2025, Poland launched a national training program open to all citizens, called “Always Prepared” or “Education with the Military”, aimed at training hundreds of thousands of civilians in a combination of practical survival skills, first aid, cybersecurity, information protection, and crisis response. This plan—open to all citizens, from schoolchildren to retirees—offers weekend training and in-person workshops covering topics from basic emergency management to community resilience.
This approach reflects the authorities’ conviction that security does not reside solely in weapons or armor, but in the population’s ability to act effectively and with collective discipline when social structures are stressed by crises or threats. Enrollment in these courses is facilitated even through an official mobile app, aiming to integrate citizen preparedness into the daily life of Polish society.
In parallel, Poland participates in EU-funded civil projects such as RESIL-POL, which focuses on creating crisis communication strategies, strengthening inter-institutional cooperation, and providing social education on risks and threats. Such initiatives provide concrete tools for communities and local authorities to share information, develop anticipatory capacities, and design coordinated responses to complex crises.
Beyond state programs, civil society initiatives such as Readiness Workshops have been implemented by organizations like Gotowi.org, which since 2021 has trained youth, adults, and the elderly in self-sufficiency, emergency response, and building personal and community resilience. These workshops include personal safety practices, first aid, and basic survival skills to reinforce individual and collective responsibility in the face of risk.
In the educational sphere, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Education have collaborated on pilot programs like Education with the Military, where soldiers and defense professionals visit thousands of schools to teach emergency preparedness measures—from first aid to the use of safe shelters—with an approach combining practical training and public awareness of the need for social preparedness in crises.
Additionally, under Poland’s presidency of the Council of the European Union, a conference was held in Gdańsk on the role of civil society in social resilience, with participation from NGOs, public authorities, and European experts to exchange best practices on integrating communities into preparation and response for multifaceted crises. Such forums reinforce the recognition that social work, civil organizations, and governments must cooperate to strengthen social cohesion in the face of threats that today go beyond purely military domains.
The result of these initiatives is a Polish preparedness strategy that is not limited to military defense or declarations of intent but seeks to build a more informed, participatory society capable of withstanding the test. Here, social work—together with civil organizations and grassroots educational projects—is at the center of a renewed social contract, where community resilience and civic preparedness are structural elements of national security, not mere assistential add-ons.
Overall, these practices show that social work in these countries is embedded in a civil resilience system that ranges from community education, joint planning with authorities, and volunteer training, to the practical organization of aid and evacuation networks for major risks. There, preparedness is not an institutional ornament but an inseparable part of the social contract: society educates itself, organizes itself, and prepares in advance to withstand the test when a real crisis arrives.
VI. Social Work in Spain: Existing Structures — and the Gaps in Social Preparedness and Emergency Response
In Spain, structures and programs touch tangentially on social preparedness for crises, but none with the strategic and systemic depth demonstrated in the Baltic or Nordic examples. Initiatives are fragmentary, often sectoral, and do not integrate social work as a structural actor in resilience.
First, Spain has a National Civil Protection System organized for emergencies. The National Civil Protection School (ENPC) delivers hundreds of courses annually, aimed at training volunteers, emergency professionals, and risk managers, with thousands of hours dedicated to equipping system actors for crisis management. These programs include simulation exercises at local, regional, and national levels and are linked to both Civil Protection services and the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism, with coordinated exercises testing operational capacity against multiple risks.
In 2025, the government also designed a Civil Protection Training Plan for non-university educational centers, explicitly aiming to provide instruction on how to respond to floods, earthquakes, wildfires, industrial accidents, extreme weather events, and other risks.
Moreover, the 2024 National Civil Protection Strategy recognizes the need to promote a culture of prevention and self-protection among citizens, including training in social resilience for individuals and families.
At the professional and sectoral training level, courses attempt to provide social professionals—including social workers—with specific tools for crisis contexts, such as Social Work in Major Emergencies, aimed at equipping practitioners to intervene in disasters and high-complexity social situations.
Universities, foundations, social work associations, and the General Council of Social Work have also developed proposals, such as specialized social education programs for disaster and community reconstruction, seeking to provide professionals with intervention skills and social strengthening capabilities for emergencies.
However, these efforts, while valuable, remain partial, sectoral, and poorly articulated in terms of national security or civic defense culture. Spain lacks a mandatory national program for citizen training in resilience that integrates schools, social services, social work, and civil protection into a continuous approach, as occurs in Finland or the Baltic states. Nor is there a state-level platform systematically integrating social work into civil anticipation and preparedness, with operational protocols, clearly defined roles in crisis plans, or regular community preparedness exercises linking citizens to their collective responsibility.
What exists in Spain are fragments of a preparedness culture: school emergency training, specialized courses for professionals, national civil protection strategies that mention self-protection—but without a broad civil pact—and sectoral seminars. What does not yet exist is a social culture of integrated, continuous civic defense, where social work is not a peripheral assistential actor but a driver of preparation, cohesion, and anticipation before the crisis, not after. Narrative without praxis allows words to replace action. In Spain, discourse is abundant; work is lacking. Narrative exists; preparation does not.
Spanish social work has learned to talk about resilience without building it, to invoke community without organizing it, to utter the word “crisis” without ever rehearsing its arrival. Strategies are drafted, conferences held, manifestos published, and institutional declarations accumulated. All exists in the realm of language. Almost nothing exists in practice.
Social intervention has become self-referential narration: the problem is described, problematized, theorized… and then archived. Praxis—that uncomfortable demand to anticipate, train, coordinate, and sustain—has been replaced by moralizing discourse that soothes consciences but does not prepare societies.
VII. Concrete Solutions: From Rhetoric to Real Preparedness
Europe observes the war in Ukraine and, with it, the evidence that social resilience cannot be improvised. In Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Finland, and Sweden, society practices preparedness before a crisis. Social work is not peripheral: it coordinates resources, trains vulnerable populations, and connects neighborhoods, schools, and local authorities through clear action plans. Citizens participate in drills, self-protection workshops, and educational programs that integrate civic education and civil defense. Security is a social contract, not an abstract concept.
The difference between a country that reacts and one that resists lies not in available resources, but in social organization and anticipatory capacity. The solutions proposed aim to transform social work from a reactive emergency manager into a driver of social resilience and cohesion, both in Spain and across the European Union.
Spain
Integrate social work at all levels of emergency and civil protection plans
It is not enough for social workers to be consulted or called only after a crisis has erupted. Each municipality, province, and autonomous community must have clear protocols in which social work is part of the operational core:
- Early identification of vulnerable populations: elderly, disabled, families in precarious situations, migrants, and isolated communities.
- Coordination with healthcare services, police, firefighters, and civil protection to ensure aid reaches those in need without overwhelming the system.
- Integration into social continuity plans: ensuring that education, supply chains, and basic assistance continue functioning even during prolonged disasters.
Justification: This integration positions social work as a guarantor of social preparedness, not merely a manager of consequences, reducing the human impact of natural or human-made emergencies.
Require social workers’ participation in drills and community planning
Real training is irreplaceable. Each drill must include scenarios where social workers play active roles:
- Evacuation and relocation plans for vulnerable populations.
- Activation of neighborhood and community support networks.
- Logistical coordination for temporary shelters, supplies, and psychosocial assistance.
This requires that social workers not only plan but participate actively, evaluating community response capacity and adjusting plans before the real crisis arrives.
Inspirational example: In Poland, social workers participate in community preparedness drills and coordinate with territorial defense forces, ensuring that civil society is trained before conflict. Spain could replicate this integration across its municipalities and autonomous communities.
Establish civic education programs in resilience and self-protection for the general population
Society cannot depend solely on professionals: every citizen must know basic protocols for action, self-protection, and community cooperation:
- Education in schools on natural and human risks, from fires to pandemics or mass service disruptions.
- Self-protection, first aid, and emergency psychology workshops open to adults and seniors.
- Creation of practice communities where neighbors train together in coordination and resilience.
Justification: This transforms resilience into a social culture, not an administrative discourse. Citizens cease to be spectators and become responsible, prepared actors.
VIII. The European Union: A Strategic Role
The EU has recognized the importance of resilience, but most policies remain at a strategic or documentary level. The opportunity is clear: replicate Baltic and Nordic models continent-wide through mandatory civil preparedness programs, integration of social work, and systematic impact evaluation.
Establish minimum civil preparedness standards including social work as a key actor
Europe cannot rely solely on military and bureaucratic structures: social resilience must be homogeneous and measurable. Minimum standards should include:
- Inclusion of social work in national emergency plans.
- Mandatory basic training for all professionals in community coordination and crisis management.
- Citizen participation protocols in preparedness and response exercises.
Reference example: Baltic and Nordic countries have clear standards where social work is an integral part of civil defense and community resilience.
Finance transnational preventive social intervention networks
The EU should invest in cooperation platforms connecting social workers, NGOs, and civil authorities across member states:
- Exchange of best practices in crisis prevention, civic education, and community management.
- Creation of risk databases and replicable community plans.
- Joint training and multinational drills, with citizen and professional participation.
Expected impact: Reduced social fragmentation, faster cross-border crisis response, and strengthening of the European community as a resilient society, not just an economic union.
Implement continuous monitoring and impact evaluation of citizen preparedness programs
Creating programs is not enough: the EU must measure their effectiveness:
- Clear indicators of citizen participation, self-protection training, and community network activation.
- Periodic audits of social work integration in emergency plans.
- Adjustments based on real outcomes, not attendance or written reports.
Justification: Only continuous monitoring ensures that social preparedness becomes a strategic security asset—replicable, scalable, and sustainable across all member states.
IX. Conclusions
Spain does not lack knowledge—it lacks will. Social work, as currently conceived, reproduces passivity, fragmentation, and dependency on third parties. For society to withstand any threat, social work must move from comfortable theory to an active agent of cohesion, civic education, and community resilience.
Without this transformation, every crisis will continue to reveal the same uncomfortable truth: Spanish society is unprepared, and social workers, instead of strengthening it, remain on the sidelines.
Narrative without praxis has proven insufficient. Spain and the EU have clear models before their eyes: countries that anticipate, train, and structure social resilience survive better. The responsibility of social work is central: prepare society before the crisis, not react after it. Security is not militarization; it is awareness, education, and collective action. Europe and Spain must act now, before history imposes its lesson again.
Spain and the EU have the opportunity to close the gap between discourse and action. Social work must transition from reactive manager to resilience architect, citizens from spectators to responsible actors, and the EU from documentary regulator to coordinator of transnational preparedness.
History does not wait. Rhetoric has proven insufficient. Only organized action, civic education, and the real integration of social work into civil protection can ensure that societies resist, recover, and survive the crisis already looming on the horizon.
X. Sources
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