Lessons from American Social Work Education: Caution Ahead

Abstract

Similar trends are occurring in Australian and US social work education, as universities increasingly adopt a rigid market orientation to tertiary education. This marketisation shapes social work education in manifold ways, including the pressure to increase revenues (and effect greater efficiencies) by expanding the size of social work programs. The unregulated growth in social work programs leads to lowered admission standards, as programs are forced to compete for students. An oversupply of social workers will also drive salaries downwards as supply eclipses demand. These issues are examined in the context of a ''big'' versus a ''small'' (fewer but more highly trained social workers) model of social work. Emphasis is placed on the lessons that Australian social work educators can learn from the challenges facing US social work education.

Creating a Standardised Teaching and Learning Framework for Social Work Field Placements

“…The introduction of new AASW Practice Standards in 2013 has provided an opportune time to refine the learning areas and tasks outlined in the CAT and the impetus to consider the CAT as a national teaching and learning framework. Karger (2012) notes that the current intense competition between universities has resulted in social work education being largely "silo-based" with very little collaboration between programs around resource-sharing (p. 323). However it was collaboration among field education coordinators within the six Victorian social work programs that was crucial to the success of this project and the promotion of a national standardised teaching and learning document will similarly require the cooperation and goodwill of social work programs around Australia.…”