Social Work Values and Principles: Students' Experiences in intervention with Children and Youths in Detention

A project with children and juveniles in a detention centre confronts social work students with their own perceptions and experiences of being direct or indirect victims of crime, with their own values and with integrating the values and principles of social work. Within an ecological perspective, past and present issues in the country's context influence perceptions and personal values. The project challenges these perceptions and value systems. Feedback include that students realise they should not judge the young people; that these youngsters have dignity and worth in spite of where they come from and the crime they committed; that they deserve respect and should be accepted for who they are. The article discusses professional values and principles in social work and provides a case study of dealing with undergraduate social work students' fears, emotions and prejudices in teaching and integrating social work values and principles.     

Build the social justice bridge: participatory photography with the international group work community

ABSTRACT

“Build the Social Justice Bridge” was a participatory photography project that engaged international group workers in an assessment of group work as a social justice profession. Inspired by principles of photovoice research, the project invited social work students, educators, and practitioners from around the world to contribute photographs and brief narratives that represented the relationship between group work and social justice. The photographs were exhibited during the opening session of the 2018 Symposium of the International Association for Social Work with Groups (IASWG) in South Africa, where more than 200 participants from ten countries reflected on the meaning of the photos for the group work community. In viewing the photos, symposium participants identified a common vision of social justice as well as culturally-specific approaches to group work. Implications are drawn for the internationalization of professional knowledge.