Social Work Education: Challenges and Opportunities

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this Issue of Australian Social Work (ASW), the journal of the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW). This, and the previous Issue (Volume 72, Issue 1, 2019), have been dedicated to various aspects of social work education in Australia, a body of work that is timely and very welcome. There is little doubt that we are facing critical challenges in this space. However, at the same time, we have encouraging opportunities to address these challenges. We need to ensure that we are proactive and clever in how we move forward.

As presented in this issue of ASW, some of the present challenges for social work education are not new, and have been gaining momentum for some time. The neoliberalist agenda of our Federal Government continues to make the rules and place pressure on universities, on the realities of the lives of our students, and on those most vulnerable in our society (e.g., Baglow & Gair, 2019; Newcomb, Burton, & Edwards, 2019). Universities are big businesses, competing not only with each other but also with private higher education entities and overseas markets. Where once financial gains from international students were a bonus for universities, they are now core income. The pressure to accommodate this market imperative can have a profound effect not only on social work programs themselves but also in the field as we struggle to fulfil our obligations around placements and support for students (e.g., Vassos, 2019; Waugh, 2019; Zuchowski, Cleak, Nixon, & Spencer, 2019) According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Labour Force Survey 2018 (ABS, 2018; Australian Government, Department of Jobs and Small Business, 2018), the number of social work positions grew strongly in the last five years and that growth is expected to continue for the next five years. These workforce projections will see demand for social work programs within universities continue. It is yet to be seen if governments and universities will bring extra resources to the table to deal with this growth.

At the same time, the laissez faire attitude in the current political climate is pushing for professional accrediting bodies to take a step back in some of the areas that have traditionally been “our space” in education. It is important that we negotiate this pressure sensibly to ensure that we maintain and further develop professional standards to maximise the quality of social work education. Any relaxing of standards needs to be done in the spirit of innovation and to address issues that we have identified as a profession, not for financial gain only for the universities.

We know that organisations, agencies, and social workers find it challenging to survive in this context and find it difficult to continue to offer placements that meet the field education requirements of our students (e.g., Ross, Ta, & Grieve, 2019). Those working in the field education teams within the social work programs in universities will tell us that it is becoming much more difficult to find placements, to find social work supervisors, to place students (especially as the complexity of the reality of student lives increases), and to resource those placements (e.g., Hill, Cleak, Egan, Ervin, & Laughton, 2019; Zuchowski et al., 2019).

Add to this mix, the current challenging circumstances faced by many students who are spending an increasing amount of time in paid work (e.g., Baglow & Gair, 2019; Gair & Baglow, 2018a). In order to be classified as “independent” prior to 22 years of age, and therefore eligible for youth allowance while studying, a student’s parents or caregivers cannot earn over $55k combined per year (Australian Government, Department of Human Services, 2018). This means many secondary school leaver students who begin their degrees at the age of 18 or 19 years, are not able to access the youth allowance until in their third or final year of a social work degree. Those who can qualify for government assistance find that youth allowance equates to 54% of other pension rates and students often need to work long hours alongside their studies to supplement this (e.g., Gair & Baglow, 2018a, 2018b). It is not rocket science to understand that this kind of pressure on time and on finances contributes to emotional and mental health stressors for our students (see Baglow & Gair, 2019). The universities also play their part in passing on as many costs as possible to students for printing and having access to the digital hardware necessary for many courses. These challenges are real and impact heavily on social work education, the educators, and our students. They require us to pause, take stock, and, alongside others, look at ways in which we can find a constructive and hopeful way forward.

The AASW, representatives from the Heads of Schools, the National Field Education Network, ANZSWWER (Australian and New Zealand Social Work and Welfare Education and Research), social workers, social work students, and consumers, will all be involved in a project for the next year and beyond to look at ways of addressing many of these challenges and complexities outlined above. We have many opportunities here.

We also have an opportunity to explore the continuing and emerging needs in the social justice arena. Yes, we need to hold firm to our core social work values and there are theories and practice skills that must remain constant (see Lawrence, 2019). However, emerging needs around the appalling systemic abuses of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (e.g., Fernando & Bennett, 2019), around climate change and the implications of this (e.g., Bell, 2019; Boetto, 2019), and of war and famine on the most vulnerable in our society (e.g., Drolet et al., 2018; Harms & Alston, 2018) will be core social work business in the years to come.

Improvement in technology and “all things ICT” (information and communication technology) provide opportunities for us to understand and incorporate these innovations wisely in social work education (e.g., Davis, Greenaway, Moore, & Cooper, 2019). We need to move away from binary discussions on whether online delivery is better than face-to-face delivery, or vice versa. The issues are far more complex than this, and include how it is done, how it is resourced, and for what purpose we are doing it. One cannot compare apples with oranges. There is little use in talking about how well online delivery works in some places (e.g., in the United States), unless one also discusses the kind of resourcing that is committed to those programs and ensure that those same resources would be replicated in Australia (see McAuliffe, 2019). If appropriate courses can be delivered online and done well (not just a replica of face-to-face courses made available on an online platform) and if they are properly resourced, it is clear that they can work well. However, I stress “appropriate” courses because methods of delivery that work well to discuss and understand a theoretical concept or the building blocks of research methodology for example, may not work well for critical reflection on ethical dilemmas (e.g., Beddoe, 2019; Watts, 2019a, 2019b), or may not contribute well to students being able to “sit” with a service user’s unregulated emotions (or the student’s own unregulated emotions when faced with this), or for a student to know how to “sit” with heavy and distressing silences (e.g., Blakemore & Agllias, 2019). We need learning methods and modes of delivery that promote discussion, ideas, and work to lay down that type of learning over and over again.

Where face-to-face teaching and learning may be difficult for some students, it is clear that online delivery allows some flexibility. For other students, online delivery only may be more difficult to access and may actually exclude them. According to the latest Australian Digital Inclusion Index (ADII, 2018), the digital divide is a key social justice issue for our time and is associated with affordability of and accessibility to digital technology. Those known to have low levels of digital inclusion include rural and remote communities, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, those at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, mobile phone only users (those with no computer access in their homes), people with disabilities, and older Australians (Thomas et al., 2018). Planning and resourcing of ICT around Australia has failed to respond equally to the needs of particular communities and we need to be mindful of this (e.g., McAuliffe, 2019).

Whatever the mode of delivery, it seems clear that students crave a community of learning, and providing this culture of learning, and a lifelong practice of continuing education throughout their careers as social workers, is what we need to aim for (see Lawrence, 2019). Students deserve nothing less. We also need to ensure, whatever we decide on as a profession in this learning space to meet the needs of social work education into the future, that we also build measurable quality indicators into all delivery platforms to ensure that student education is the first priority.

Challenges in social work education are not new. In fact, these current challenges have given us the incentive to come together and reflect on social work education. As the body responsible for the development of the Australian Social Work Education and Accreditation Standards, the AASW is committed to working with these other national representatives. We will be working on a way forward, not just to find solutions for the short term, but laying down processes to keep these reflections, evaluations, research findings, and conversations going.

It is terrific to have this issue (and the previous issue) of ASW, the social work journal, to contribute to these discussions. There is obviously much commitment and interest from social workers across Australia. This is an exciting time for social work education with so much potential.