Faculty for Social Wellbeing celebrates 10-year anniversary with ‘Unity’

Unity celebrates 10 years of the Faculty for Social Wellbeing, with contributions from MaltaToday journalists and heads of department and teaching staff from the faculty.

A lot of water has gone under the bridge since the setting up of the Faculty for Social Wellbeing at the University of Malta back in 2012.

Various challenges notwithstanding, disparate departments, centres and institutes overcame the odds to morph into a Faculty that brings the lens upon human existence in both a holistic and non-pathologizing way through intersectional arenas, such as gender and sexualities, criminology, psychology, social policy and social work, counselling, youth and community, gerontology and dementia, family and children, and disability.

The Faculty was planned from the very beginning to prevent and mitigate against human vulnerability by strengthening academic rhetoric, but most and more importantly, acting as a catalyst for innovative psycho-social and health care policies.

The setting up of the Faculty for Social Wellbeing had come about through the initiative of the then-Rector, Professor Juanito Camilleri, who in the spring of 2012 approached various existing departments, institutes and centres with a ‘social wellbeing’ focus, to explore the possibility of bringing these academic entities together.

This initiative was received well and after meetings with all the relevant stakeholders, the Rector’s proposal for the setting up of the Faculty was approved by the University Senate and Council, the governing bodies of the university.

Unity, as a newspaper publication, provides a snapshot of key social problems that Malta is currently facing and wresting with following the various turning points and transitions experienced during the past decade.