Preparing social workers for global gaze: locating global citizenship within social work curricula

Institutions of higher education have been particularly vulnerable to the pressures of globalization, resulting in policies and ensuing curricula that look to address the needs of students to be better prepared for living and working in a world in which global awareness, and perhaps even global identity, are requisites for success. Social work education is uniquely positioned to adapt its curricula for successful student outcomes in an increasingly globalized world. The challenges associated with social welfare, which have intensified under globalization, has been a long-standing concern of social work policy and practice. This article suggests strategies for integrating global citizenship education within social work studies, recognizing the affinities that exist between contemporary conceptualizations of global citizenship and social work practice. The article proposes four interrelated components that might be strategically implemented within existing social work curriculum, in consideration of the contextual ethos of the respective school of social work.     

Social work educators and social policy: a cross-professional perspective

This article seeks to contribute to the ongoing debate within European social work on the role of social work educators in influencing social policy. It reports on a study that examined the role of social work educators in furthering social policy by comparing Israeli social work educators’ engagement in policy with faculty members in professional schools with strong ties to social policy, namely education and healthcare. While the findings show some similarities between the three groups of educators, they also underscore marked differences between educators in social work and the other professions. In particular, social work educators are more involved in, and more committed to, social policy engagement than faculty members of other professional schools are. These divergences are attributed to the greater focus upon policy practice in social work and its prevalence in teaching programmes, as well as to the profession’s focus on disenfranchised clients, who are especially impacted by social policies.     

Social work and macro-economic neoliberalism: beyond the social justice rhetoric

Macro-economic policy shapes and structures social welfare policy, services, and their implementation. As a result, the commoditisation of social welfare services and the use of markets as well as private sector management philosophies and tools have colonised and fashioned the design, provision and implementation of social welfare policy and structures. The impact has been far reaching, from limiting social welfare responses of elected democratic government to shaping the profession in a range of intended and unintended directions. Written from a UK perspective, this paper proposes a discussion of the impact of macro-economic neoliberal policies in the field of social welfare and explores the implications for social work practice. The paper also promotes a debate within the profession regarding the importance of macro-economic analysis and possible responses, as well as suggesting a way forward within European and, more broadly, international practice contexts.     

Express

This paper describes an integrated approach to teaching social policy within a unique experience-based social work education program. It argues that the teaching of social policy should not be separate within the social work curriculum and provides an example of the integration of policy and practice in teaching students about child protection. It examines the teaching of policy practice using a strengths perspective where it is seen as a bottom-up, inductive process rather than an activity carried out by social work experts with or without the participation of their client groups.     

Human rights at the heart of the social work curriculum

ABSTRACT

Social work policy and practice all over the world continue to face the impact of the neoliberal agenda. Similarly, social work education has been subject to the economic and political changes, with an increasing emphasis on a discourse of ‘evidence-based practice’. However, it is the core of social work programs in higher education to initiate students in the fundamental values of social work, as they are recognized in the global definition of social work. In order to prepare future social workers for their assignment, human rights should be given an explicit place in the social work curricula at Universities and Universities of Applied Sciences.

For human rights to gain more attention in social work programs in higher education, a Manifesto was written by lecturers’ social work in the Netherlands and Flanders, with a 5-point program to include human rights in the social work curricula. In this article, we elaborate on the five objectives that are presented in the Manifesto. Throughout the paper, we introduce small ‘case examples’ of how human rights can be integrated in education. These experiences show the importance of developing a particular social work perspective on human rights that is found in the idea of ‘human rights from below.’     

Promoting sexual well-being in social work education and practice

This paper explores the importance of including sexual well-being within social work practice and education. Social workers often work with individuals for whom opportunities for sexual expression are limited and who face discriminatory attitudes. Sexual well-being is a global concern, and is particularly relevant considering international interest in the influence of notions of well-being on mental and physical health. Implementation of new social care policy in England, underpinned by the well-being principle, provides practitioners with the opportunity to explore what is meaningful to individual’s well-being through person-centred approaches to practice. There is currently little coverage of sexual well-being within social work education, this means students and practitioners lack the knowledge and skills to challenge barriers. Promotion of the concept of sexual citizenship, with its associated rights and responsibilities, enables social workers to engage in rights focused practice. Sexual well-being is a sensitive subject and the social and personal barriers practitioners may experience in addressing this topic are explored.     

Social education and social pedagogy: reclaiming a Scottish tradition in social work

Social pedagogy is the discipline underpinning work with children and youth across most of Europe. The concept has struggled to find a place within social work in the English-speaking world, partly because of difficulties in translation and partly as a result of different welfare traditions. In particular there is a limited conception of education within the Anglo American Saxon tradition and a consequent bifurcation of education and care. This article argues that ideas enshrined within social pedagogy have a resonance with Scottish approaches to social welfare, which culminate in the Kilbrandon Report of 1964. We argue that there are recurrent themes in the Scottish tradition with roots in the Reformation and the Scottish Enlightenment. Foremost amongst these is the focus on education as a vehicle for both individual improvement and social cohesion. Social pedagogy or social education offers an integrating conceptual base from which to develop models of social work practice which promote social wellbeing through socio-educational strategies. The current review of social work in Scotland offers opportunities to reclaim a socio-educational tradition.     

Service users’ involvement in social work education: focus on social change projects

ABSTRACT

This article presents and analyzes four projects focusing on diverse forms of service users’ involvement in social work training and research in different countries (Israel, Italy, Slovenia and UK). It highlights the value of service user involvement (SUI) to specific social change objectives and to social work education. The conceptual framework focused on the Standpoint Theory, while methodologically participatory action research was applied, and evaluation measures were developed. Key findings, facilitators and limitations to the involvement, students’ views of it and similarities and differences among the four projects are outlined. The challenges embedded in introducing and sustaining social change objectives in a co-production framework within social work education are identified, alongside the added value of meeting them. The differentiated impact the projects had on students is highlighted as well as their significance for health and social care providers were relevant. It is encouraging that in each project SUI was positively valued. The projects indicate the wide range of SUI in the content and format of social work education, as well as its applicability cross-culturally to a range of key issues pertaining to both training and research in social work.     

The social shaping of digital research

The social shaping of technology (SST) has become a broad umbrella term to cover a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives in the social sciences. It has also defined a set of funded projects in the UK focused on a particular technical initiative around e-social science – digital social research. It is increasingly understood that social science research and work on the SST, in particular, should be applied to the study of innovations in digital research and their implications for the sciences and humanities. This overview is designed to help introduce the diversity of perspectives that the social sciences can bring to bear, such as under the social shaping umbrella and explain why this set of perspectives is of value to policy and practice in this field. The continuing advance and diffusion of digital research make it ever more important to strengthen the role of the social sciences in this area of multi-disciplinary research, policy, and practice.     

The role of critical social work education in improving ethical practice with refugees and asylum seekers

ABSTRACT

This paper uses critical reflection as its primary methodology to research one Master of Social Work student’s former practice experiences as an Australian immigration officer. The paper contextualizes the study by offering a critical analysis of hegemonic constructions of asylum seekers in Australia, which are reflected in Australian law and policy, as well as potentially influencing social work practice. Critical reflection on one of the author’s practice provides a rich case study that reveals the tensions of government-employed social workers in restrictive environments, and the espoused social justice values of the profession. The findings hold implications for both social work education and practice, suggesting that critical social work education, and in particular, the use of critical analysis and reflection, can improve ethical practice with refugees and asylum seekers.     

Identity and everyday experiences of homelessness: Some implications for social work

It is important for the complexities of homelessness to be considered when constructing policy or practice relating to people who are without safe and stable accommodation. These complexities can be loosely categorised around the definitions, causes and experiences of homelessness. While definitions and causes are topics of current debates, study of the lived-experiences of homelessness remains an area that is largely under-researched. This paper explores some of the implications for social work and social workers when the individual's understanding and experience of her/his identity as a ‘homeless person’ and consequent relationships with service providers are not factored into policy and practice. This article draws on the findings of a study of homeless adults in inner city Adelaide to illustrate the author's arguments. It outlines the importance of listening to service users' perspectives in order to assess whether dominant constructions of social work, homelessness and ‘homeless people’ are meeting the needs of and improving outcomes for individual clients. More broadly, it is hoped that making these perspectives visible will assist in the development of ‘client-focused’ practice and policy.     

Reading Wacquant: social work and advanced marginality

Professor Loic Wacquant was born in Montpelier in 1960. He was educated in France before completing a Ph.D. in Chicago in 1994. He is currently Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Berkeley. His work is concerned with the impact of neoliberalism in the area of welfare and penal policy. Wacquant has published a number of highly influential books the most notable of which are Les Prisons de la misère (1999, translated in 20 languages; new and expanded English edition, Prisons of Poverty, 2009), Body and Soul: Ethnographic Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer (2000), Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality (2008) and Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity (2009). These works, along with the major papers listed in the bibliography, form the core of Wacquant's analysis of the impact of neoliberal welfare and penal policy. These papers consider three key areas: advanced marginality, race (ethno-racial domination) and the rise of the penal state. His significance as a commentator for social work, specifically, lies in his critical engagement with these three areas that have so shaped the development of modern welfare and penal policy. The article concludes that Wacquant's work provides a clear analytical framework for the study of the organisational and social contexts of contemporary practice. His work also calls for a more politically engaged social work practice—a form of practice that will move away from social work as a narrow bureaucratic activity dominated by risk management and return to core social work values.     

Neoliberalism and social work identity

This article considers the relationship between the identity of social work and the neoliberal political project. Reference is made to a small but carefully structured quantitative research study in Auckland, New Zealand which examined the knowledge applied and produced in the practice of social work. This study found evidence consistent with Philp’s [(1979). Notes on the form of knowledge in social work. Sociological Review, 27(1), 83–111] theorisation of a specific ‘form of knowledge’ for social work which is produced and reproduced as a function of relational engagement between social workers and those who are constructed as ‘clients’ in an unequal society. This discourse casts the ‘failing subject’ as socially located and inherently redeemable in direct contrast to populist neoliberal constructions of personal responsibility and moral deficit. With reference to dialectical theory it is suggested that this resilient discourse, embedded in ‘every-day’ practice, is inevitably a source of resistance to the imposition of neoliberal practice and policy design. This resistance provides hope for the progressive voice of social work in the current contest of ideas in relation to the future development of social work.     

Social work promoting participation: reflections on policy practice in Italy

One of the core dimensions of social work practice, identified since its establishment as a professional endeavour, is concerned with political action. Nonetheless, policy practice, which entails that social workers should connect their work with individuals, as in traditional casework, to wider political action, is often perceived as marginal in everyday practice. This paper connects views on social work policy practices to the context provided by the ways social policies are actually constructed in Italy. A research study on governance processes across Italy, addressing the main actors involved in social policy-making, reveals that in fact practitioners’ political action is differently represented within different frameworks, ranging from being seen as a near impossibility, to being perceived as a crucial factor in the policy-making processes. If context and cultures play such a relevant role, synergistic work at different levels and by all the different actors in the social work community is required if we want social workers to be able to express their potential fully in the political arena.     

Investigating the quality of social work. An experience of self-assessment with Italian social workers

Evaluating the quality of social work practice is becoming increasingly important for various reasons, among which are changes in the welfare system and the reduction of resources. Meanwhile, it is acknowledged that evaluating the quality of social work is a highly complex task. Different meanings are attributed to the concept of quality and the concept of quality in itself is linked to the notion of social work identity, nature and aims, which is an object in transition. Although performance appraisal systems are spreading, a common understanding about what is ‘good social work practice’ is lacking, also within the professional community. In Italy, social workers seem missing in the arena of investigating and indicating which criteria can be used to evaluate social work practice. To counteract this weakness, a participative research-intervention project was developed from 2006 to 2011, aimed at supporting social workers in evaluating their work. During workshops with practitioners a self-evaluation tool was designed by means of asking social workers for the possible criteria to be used to define ‘good social work practice’. This paper presents the structure and methods adopted throughout such project, focusing on both the self-assessment questionnaire and the emerging notions of quality of social work.     

Culturally sensitive social work: promoting cultural competence

In current times of great conflict and clashes between different cultures and worldviews, cultural competencies should be a well embedded feature of social work education. This is a fundamental and cross-cutting issue; however, we question whether it is an obvious concern in social work education in European countries, specifically in Portugal, and if the curriculum of social work courses covers this topic. This article is based on research that seeks to find out if there are mandatory curricular units of the disciplinary field of social work that explicitly address culturally sensitive social work and cultural competencies. Thus, this article presents a study that focuses on educational institutions that provide social work courses in Portugal, and has the potential to be extended to other countries. An online survey and a document analysis of the curriculum programmes of all Portuguese courses in social work were conducted. The study results revealed the lack of curricular units with clear terms relating to the topic of culturally sensitive social work. The implications for practice and educational policy are also discussed, which lead to a reflection and analysis of the evaluation and accreditation process of social work education in Portugal, with a conclusion that it is incomplete and faces major challenges in curriculum development and course accreditation. Challenges and opportunities in developing social work curricula, as well the debate around a generic or specialist social work education are also discussed. Finally, the authors suggest an opportunity to develop cultural competencies through continuing and lifelong learning for social workers.     

Helping People with Learning Difficulties into Paid Employment

Summary

Welfare to work policies have developed partly from policy rhetoric that argues employment as the best way of ensuring social inclusion for marginalised groups. In the United Kingdom, welfare to work policies for disabled people have developed within an enabling rather than a mandatory system, although organisation and practice have lagged behind. This article explores policies that provide this enabling context for facilitating the transition of people with learning difficulties from benefits to paid employment. It also explores the role of social workers, examining the degree to which their practice reflects the empowering rhetoric of the policy framework and of contemporary social work values.     

Navigating stormy waters: Challenges and opportunities for social work in mental health

The reforms driven by the National Mental Health Strategy have created both opportunities and challenges for social work as a profession. This paper examines the rapidly changing context for practice in mental health, including policy change, and developments in the education and training of the mental health workforce. Key practice issues identified for social work include: (i) the need to establish a viable paradigm for practice; (ii) a more positive response to the challenge of evidence-based practice models; (iii) a national agenda for education and training; and (iv) the importance of working collaboratively with consumers and families in a way that values their human rights and the lived experience of mental illness.     

Practice experience and social work education

Abstract

This paper examines the arguments that are often put in favour of social work academics having direct practice experience in order to enhance their teaching effectiveness. The paper looks at the number of ways that social work academics can gain up to date knowledge of practice developments and explores what constitutes an effective teacher. It concludes that recent direct practice experience will be of limited use in assisting social work academics to become effective teachers and that there are other ways that academics can become aware of practice developments that are in line with the other professional requirements on academics such as research and knowledge generation.     

Information and computer technology use in Australian social work education

Abstract

Computer technology is now an every day aspect of both our personal and professional lives. Recently however, concern has been raised as to the preparedness of social work students to use this tool effectively when entering the practice setting. This paper sets out to address the issue by investigating the extent and ways in which computer technology is included in four-year full time Australian social work degree programs. A national study of Australian academics was conducted and the main themes to emerge were: 1) information and computer technology was considered important for social work education and practice; 2) educators need to understand technology if they are to incorporate it effectively within their curricula; 3) the inclusion of technology in social work education should be approached with caution to ensure it is used appropriately to enhance students' learning while maintaining the guiding values and principles of practice of the social work profession; and 4) that students are aware of the legal and ethical use of technology in practice.