Foreword

Associate Professor Robyn Martin

Partnerships are central to social work and underpin its core values and principles. These partnerships involve social work practitioners, field educators, health and human services agencies, students, academics and administrative staff. Field education reinforces the significance of partnerships while also emphasising the nexus between student development and learning, academic and practice standards, and contemporary trends and issues.

COVID-19 has fundamentally changed lives across the globe, amplifying exclusion, disadvantage and privilege. The everyday activities considered core to social work practice and education have been disrupted, overturned, and reimagined. These past few years have demanded a rapid reorientation to social work education and practice; observed most sharply in field education.

This edition of the Partnerships with the Community: Social Work Field Education during the Covid-19 Pandemic is a testament to the intentional relationships that underpin social work field education. Central to these partnerships are reciprocity, innovation, deep listening and curiosity. A key learning from the last few years is the need to reimagine how social work situates itself alongside key stakeholders including service users and other marginalised groups. It is a privilege to introduce the second edition of this book which highlights the reciprocal nature of field education partnerships, across a range of sites of practice with a wide variety of service user groups. This text provides evidence of how social work field education responds to industry needs and emerging issues within a rapidly changing social, political and culture landscape.