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Social work
Social Work in Aotearoa New Zealand
KATHRYN HAY, MICHAEL DALE AND LAREEN COOPER
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All social work students must decide where to undertake their required field placement during their study, as well as which field of practice to work in after graduation. This helpful book introduces students to five fields of practice in Aotearoa New Zealand.
DR KATHRYN HAY is a senior lecturer and Director of Field Education in the School of Social Work at Massey University. She is a registered social worker and a member of the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers.
DR MICHAEL DALE has been a senior lecturer in the Social Work and Social Policy Programme at Massey’s University’s School of Social Work since 2001 and has 33 years’ work experience within the social services sector.
LAREEN COOPER is a senior lecturer and Associate Head of School in the Social Work and Social Policy programme at Massey University’s School of Social Work. She has an extensive background in health services management. PUBLISHED: November 2016 ISBN: 9780994130082 Limpbound, 210 x 145mm. 240 pages. $45
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SOCIAL WORK IN AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND TEXT EXTRACT
Social work in Aotearoa New Zealand has a dual focus: 1. To enable and empower individuals, families, groups and communities to find their own solutions to the issues and problems that beset them, and; 2. To learn from specific instances of need, to inform society at large about the injustices in its midst, and to engage in action to change the structures of society that create and perpetuate injustice.
In this text, five fields of practice in Aotearoa New Zealand have been highlighted, through the voices of the social workers as well as the authors. Drawing on the frameworks of Kamerman (2002), Nash, Munford, and Hay (2001) and Alston and McKinnon (2005), each chapter explores six aspects of the work of the social workers, including: • their organisation • their field of practice • the theories and models utilised • key issues and challenges • bicultural considerations • reasons for working in their organisation.
Defining Social Work in Aotearoa
MICHAEL DALE, HANNAH MOONEY AND KIERAN O’DONOGHUE
In 1976 Massey University became the first New Zealand university to offer a social work degree. This book, published in 2017, marks 40 years since that milestone. Relevant to all social workers today, its chapters highlight the political and social backdrop against which the profession has developed over the past four decades.
MICHAEL DALE has been a senior lecturer in the Social Work and Social Policy Programme at Massey’s University’s School of Social Work since 2001 and has 33 years’ work experience within the social services sector.
KIERAN O’DONOGHUE is Head of the School of Social Work at Massey University. He is a registered social worker and a member of ANZASW.
HANNAH MOONEY is a lecturer at Massey University’s School of Social Work.
PUBLISHED: September 2017 ISBN: 9780994130099 Limpbound, 210 x 147mm. 320 pages. $45
SONYA HUNT, AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND
SOCIAL WORK
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DEFINING SOCIAL WORK IN AOTEAROA TEXT EXTRACT
The social work profession is a bridge extended to those who are excluded, marginalised, lost and unloved within society. On a daily basis, social workers work on behalf of the public to assist individuals, groups, families, whānau and communities to change the stories and circumstances of their lives, as well as the way in which society positions them in the stories that are told about them.
Social work practice involves intervening in the social problems that impact on people’s private lives. Through the decades, social workers have undertaken this work diligently, while pressed for time and having to navigate the competing demands of clients, their agencies, resources, the law and social policy. Social workers as a group are generally unassuming, service-orientated and focused on the needs of their clients, while working for change within bureaucratic, dehumanising and rationed systems. They are engaged in social change through mediating the aspirations of human rights and social justice within civil society. Nonetheless, the realities of their work loom large, and as professionals some are often marginalised, in a similar fashion to the clients they serve.
In Aotearoa New Zealand, the social work profession has been constructed from a range of attitudes to welfare, including indigenous and Western approaches (rising from settler notions of charity delivered primarily by religious organisations). The establishment of the welfare state saw the government become the main provider of social and welfare services, through the departments of Education (Child Welfare Division), Māori Affairs (Māori Welfare Office), Health, Social Security and Justice. Up until the Department of Social Welfare Act in 1971, social workers practised under a range of titles including Child Welfare Officer, Māori Welfare Officer and Field Officer.
