From April 2 to 4, 2025, the international symposium "Practices of Trust" took place at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences in Berlin. In the practical experience of social work and related professions, it has become clear time and again that trust processes play an important role in successful support processes. However, there are still many unanswered questions as to how trust processes are structured in detail in practice. The lack of clarity is even greater when it comes to how knowledge about trust processes can be reliably conveyed to prospective professionals. However, some empirical results, concepts and theories have already been developed on the subject. However, they have not yet been widely disseminated.
The symposium was based on the successful collaboration between the participants in previous years. It had proved successful to meet in a smaller group and to go into more depth on this basis. The theme of this year's meeting was "Practices of trust". In his keynote speech, Jan-Philipp Reemtsma presented his view of "social trust" as a basic social function. The other contributions included empirical and theoretical work by individual participants from Germany, Canada and the UK, which were then discussed in detail and in depth. The symposium was prepared and organized by Rita Hansjürgens, Marion Mayer, Uta Walter and Silke Birgitta Gahleitner.
The meeting proved very successful in terms of its format and the fact that the group has been meeting regularly for several years. Next year, the Würzburg colleagues will host the symposium. All interested parties are invited to apply to present papers there.
