Making sense of the social work field education liaison role and impacts of neoliberalism: An invitation to reflect and reimagine!

ABSTRACT

The social work field education liaison role is fraught with tensions, contradictions and role ambiguity, causing confusion about the role, functions and responsibilities of the liaison across individual staff, students and universities, resulting in students’ divergent experiences and liaison staff floundering in the mire of uncertainty. As an academic, my experiences of undertaking the liaison role across different institutions observing colleagues fulfilling the role differently and managerial changes to resourcing prompted me to review the literature further to develop understanding of the role and to inform my practice. A thematic literate review was conducted in which 36 academic articles were reviewed, excerpts collated, coded and analyzed. Six themes emerged and are explored in this piece: signature pedagogy and the importance of the liaison role; under-researched and ambiguous; roles, functions and responsibilities; a conduit of the university and governing bodies; the neoliberal managerialist context and a call to revitalise the liaison role. Further, reflections on how reviewing the literature informed my practice are shared. It is hoped this paper will provide an exploration of the liaison role that will invite others to engage in a reflective process and to begin reimagining how they fulfill the role.

KEYWORDS:

• Social work liaison
• liaison faculty
• liaison role
• field education liaison
• neoliberalism

Acknowledgement

I would like to express my gratitude to the colleagues I worked with on a related project that helped to develop my thinking and reflections in this space. I would also like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers for their constructive feedback and comments that extended my reflections and strengthened this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ann Carrington

Ann Carrington, PhD, BSW(Hons), is a senior lecturer in Social Work at James Cook University. In the field Ann worked predominantly in the area of sexual assault and domestic violence. Her research and academic interests include violence and against women, spirituality, research methodologies, curriculum design, blended learning and student engagement.