Social Work and the Environment: Understanding People and Place

This paper is located in the theoretical debates of late modernism: it explores the tensions inherent in the delivery of standardised, validated and carefully planned social work education programmes within the context of late modern societies. Preparing social workers to address dynamic policy changes, fluctuating resources and changing service demands and the needs of service-users in areas with shifting populations, provides a challenge to social work educators. The design and delivery of a refresher programme for previously qualified social workers is used to illustrate the ways in which the tension between static teaching programmes and fluid demands for social work services were accommodated.