In a rapidly changing and unpredictable global environment, there is new impetus to draw on
community development approaches in the face of complex practice challenges that include the
long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. As social work and community development educators
in Ireland and Australia, the question becomes how can we respond in a time of major
‘disruption’ where there are both opportunities and constraints? This paper
settles on this pause and uncertainty to seek new approaches to prepare social work students
for changing conditions. Long-standing questions re-surface in relation to social, economic,
political and environmental structures and conditions that are located in a neoliberal
framework. The paper explores challenges and opportunities facing educators and social work
students through a core set of principles—critical, relational and connected—that
underpin our community development pedagogy. Within these themes, we explore teaching practices
which seek to create a ‘Community of Learners’, generate a process of
collaborative critical inquiry, engage students in reflective praxis enriched by contemporary
theory and research, and foster a deep, connected and adaptive perspective on global and local
issues. This stimulates creativity and meets the need for critical and adaptable practitioners
capable of practical action through this period of disruption and crises of governance, climate
and technologies of the future.