A national survey of Australian social work field education programs: innovation with limited capacity

Journal Publication ResearchOnline@JCU
Zuchowski, Ines;Cleak, Helen;Nickson, Amanda;Spencer, Anna
Abstract

Social work field education programs globally are struggling to meet the demands of providing suitable placements for students and need to consider new and innovative placement models to both meet professional accreditation requirements and deliver high quality field education opportunities for social work students. This article reports on the qualitative responses of a national survey of Australian social work field education programs, which explored current challenges, innovative responses, and recommendations for the Australian Social Work Education and Accreditation Standards (ASWEAS) review, as well as hopes for the future of field education, and their capacity to undertake research into this area. Findings suggested that field education programs have been using incremental innovation in field education, including collaboration, partnerships, and new ways of responding to the changing student body. However, it is argued that radical structural change and additional resources will be needed for innovation to be more than merely incremental.

Journal

Australian Social Work

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Volume

72

ISBN/ISSN

1447-0748

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Issue

1

Pages Count

16

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Publisher

Taylor & Francis

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Publisher Location

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Publish Date

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Url

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Date

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EISSN

N/A

DOI

10.1080/0312407X.2018.1511740