Abstract
The COVlD-19 pandemic has drastically evidenced existing fault lines in the global system of societies. While the crisis has certainly posed unexpected challenges to the protection of citizens' health, in conjunction with their social and economic welfare, responding to these challenges lastingly will be particularly difficult because it requires a total reversal of prevailing social, economic and political presumptions.
These bad been characte1ized by a consistent dismantling of collective state responsibilities for welfare and, with that, by a dissolution of social cohesion through a reliance on private market processes, a trend which governments had to reverse frantically. If this reversal is to lead to sustainable social policy developments, these need to take account or the following core competences of social work.