Social work external accrediting bodies are moving towards competency-based models that require educational providers to demonstrate that students meet specific competencies at graduation. It is ...expected that all social work students at accredited social work programs in Australia will have acquired specific graduate attributes and demonstrated the associated learning outcomes by the completion of their degree. The purpose of this study was to investigate the experiences and benefits of using an ePortfolio with Master of Social Work students (n = 43) to critically reflect on their own learning and demonstrate how they met the Australian Association of Social Work graduate attributes necessary for accreditation. The findings revealed that students' perceived level of readiness for practice and identity as a professional social worker increased with the successful completion of the ePortfolio. The study also identified barriers and enablers in implementing the ePortfolio as an assessment piece to document overall program learning outcomes. The conclusion discusses how ePortfolios are a viable assessment tool in the online and blended learning space that has benefit for both the student and the program in demonstrating learning outcomes and compliance with accreditation graduate standards.
IMPLICATIONS
Academic ePortfolios are an effective tool for student reflection and communication of competence of required graduate outcomes.
Student self-assessment of graduate attributes can strengthen professional identity and preparedness for professional practice.
The ePortfolios benefit students and social work educators by sharing the accreditation-obligated responsibility of ensuring that AASW graduate competencies are met.
Abstract
Social work in Brazil advocates a radical and critical model of social work theorisation and practice. This article explores the Brazilian theoretical and practice model, identifying the ...profession as being in the vortex of Covid-19, increasing state economic austerity, attacks on previously hard-won progressive social policy and increasing inequality and precarity. This provides a challenging practice environment. The professional re-conceptualisation model proposes that social work needs to fully theorise social difficulties to ensure that the profession intervenes to address the causes of the problems, rather than manifestations underlying them. This is undertaken through aligning itself with working-class conflicts, promoting rights and refusing to accept the rolling back of support already won. The Brazilian framework, located within its social realities, offers an opportunity for social work globally to consider what lessons can be learnt, to recognise the uniqueness of its perspectives and provide solidarity through its recognition.
According to the United Nations' latest data, the United States has more children living in poverty than any other industrialized nation in the world. More than a fifth of all children grow up in ...poverty. The poverty rates for African American and Latino children often exceed 40 percent. Furthermore, the United States — a country that once pioneered strategies to prevent child abuse and which now spends more money fighting child abuse than any other industrialized country — also has the highest rate of child abuse in the industrialized world. Against this background, the author, an authority on child welfare, takes a critical look at the current welfare system. He traces the transformation of child welfare into child protective services, arguing that the current focus on abuse has produced a system which is designed to protect children from physical and sexual abuse, and therefore functions as a last resort for only the worst and most dramatic cases in child welfare. In a close analysis of the process of investigating child abuse, the author finds that there is no evidence that the transformation into protective services has reduced child abuse fatalities or that it has provided a safer environment for children. He makes an argument for the criminal justice system to assume responsibility for the problem of child abuse in order for the child welfare system to be able to adequately address the wellbeing of a much larger number of children now growing up in poverty. This new edition of The Welfare of Children takes into account a major legislative change since the publication of the first edition: the welfare reform legislation of 1996. This legislation has fundamentally altered the public child welfare system as broadly understood, and the author of this book examines its implications on policy and practice, refuting the claim that welfare reform has actually reduced child poverty. The Welfare of Children, 2nd Edition is a blueprint for the comprehensive reform of the current child welfare system to one that administers to the economic security of the larger number of disadvantaged and impoverished children.
Spirituality and Social Work Crisp, Beth R.
2010, 20160401, 2010-08-01, 2016-04-01, 2016-03-31, 2012-12-28
eBook
For much of the twentieth century, professional social work sought to distance itself from its religious origins with the consequence being that the role of spirituality in the lives of service users ...tended to be sidelined. Yet it is clear that many people begin to explore their spirituality precisely at times when they are trying to make sense of difficult life circumstances or experiences and may come into contact with social workers. In recent years, there has been an increasing understanding that in order to be relevant to the lives of people they work with, social workers need to go beyond their material needs, but there is little understanding of how spirituality can be sensitively incorporated into practice, especially when either practitioners or service users have no religious affiliation or there is no shared religious background. In this pathbreaking volume Beth Crisp offers social workers ideas of beginning conversations in which spiritual values and beliefs may surface, allowing service users to respond from their own framework and to begin to discuss the specific religious or spiritual practices and beliefs which are important to them. She considers spirituality in the context of lived experience, a perspective that she argues breaks down any mystique and suspicion of explicitly religious language by focusing on language and experiences with which most people can identify. Such a framework allows exploration of issues that emerge at different stages in the lifespan, both by persons who are religious and those who do not identify with any formal religion. Most literature on spirituality within social work refers to the elderly, to those who are sick or have been bereaved, yet, as Crisp points out, spirituality is important for people of all ages and not just at seemingly exceptional moments.
Sur le sentier de la paix sociale est le témoignage de dix ans d’expériences et de réflexions d’un travailleur social. Par des récits et encarts analytiques, David Teti aborde différents thèmes : la ...jeunesse, les rapports intergénérationnels et interculturels, les discriminations, etc. Il montre maintes façons de mener des projets avec les citoyennes, y compris celles et ceux qui sont les plus éloignées des instances. L’axe central de la posture professionnelle de travailleur social présentée est celui du faire avec les gens. Cette pratique révèle la nécessité de déployer une énergie à la fois bienveillante et déterminée pour que les habitantes se considèrent concerné·es par l’amélioration de leur environnement proche. Cette posture professionnelle s’articule autour d’une triple présence : Une présence accueillante, évoquant des façons d’établir un lien de confiance avec la population (travail de rue, implication des jeunes, occupation des espaces publics, force du socioculturel, etc.). Une présence incarnée, convoquant les communications verbale et corporelle pour gérer les conflits. Une présence citoyenne, mettant en exergue projets participatifs et pédagogies alternatives. Sur le sentier de la paix sociale allie des cheminements personnels et collectifs pour tendre, ensemble, vers une société plus douce, plus solidaire et plus fraternelle.
Contextualizing disciplinary histories through the personal stories of forerunners creates compelling narratives of the craft of evolving professions. By looking to our intellectual and practitioner ...ancestors, we participate in a dialogue with a history that shapes our contemporary professional identities and aspirations for the future. Grounded in a decolonizing approach to social work, this article examines how the discipline shapes its professional identity and ways of knowing by centering the role of canonical founders in the social work curriculum. The global social work origin story in the curriculum often centers on Anglo-American ancestors that illustrate the development of the disciplinary boundaries of the international profession. One method of decolonizing social work epistemology at the intersection of ancestors and professional lineage could be to look to public history as a pedagogical tool in the curriculum. The article concludes by examining the use of podcasts as having the potential to decolonize the process of collecting, analyzing, and disseminating local knowledge of ancestors thus challenging the top-down approach to expert-driven epistemologies.
A plethora of discussion informs decolonising social work. However, how social work can be decolonised from women’s perspective is still unexplored. Using the context of Nepal as a case study, this ...article theoretically explores ‘the what’, ‘the why’ and ‘the how’ of decolonising social work from women’s standpoint. It is hoped this analysis will initiate and contribute to the critical debate on women, social work and decolonisation in Nepal and elsewhere.
The struggle to find theory Driessen, Molly C
International social work,
03/2024, Letnik:
67, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The purpose of this brief note is to critically reflect on the unresolvedness of the multiple debates within the field of social work, using both scholar and practitioner perspectives. These debates ...include theory’s relationship to research and practice, the micro-mezzo-macro practice divides, and broader questions of the profession’s identity.
Social work is observing an increasing awareness of geographical inequity in knowledge creation and dissemination, an interest in research by scholars from the global South, and debates about the ...extent to which the multiple contexts of social work are recognised. This article extends understandings of these research dynamics through reviewing recent articles authored in the global South and published in the 10 largest social work journals, subjecting them to analysis across institutional affiliation, author order and research type. Findings highlight an absence of knowledge from the global South, identifying major gaps in social work theorising, research and knowledge.
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