Scholar Sheds Light on the Need to Broaden Social Work Education

Scholar Sheds Light on the Need to

Broaden Social Work Education

Dr. Jeanette Schmid, a Professor of Social Work at VIU, wants social work education and practice in Canada to be meaningful to the communities it serves.

She hopes her research – Pulling Together the Threads: Current Understandings of Contextualized Social Work Education – done in partnership with the Centre for Social Development in Africa; Marina Morgenshtern, Trent University; and Yasmin Turton, University of Johannesburg; will start the conversation about harnessing alternative social work models that are responsive to different perspectives and ways of knowing and being. In a Canadian context, this entails learning from Indigenous and racialized communities about how they identify, approach and solve issues facing the community and moving forward in a manner that is meaningful to that community and doesn’t cause harm. “Social workers are often labelled as those people who’ve done harm in the community by imposing their helpful approaches and ignoring people’s traditional ways of solving problems,” says Schmid. “We hope to offer insights on how those inferences have arisen and how we can work towards a social transformation that is meaningful to local populations, wherever you are in the world.”

Schmid says when social workers impose their methods, without taking into account cultural approaches, it creates a “power dynamic where we assert our expertise and, in the process, rob the voices and experience of the people we are working with.” Schmid says to establish contextualized social work education, it’s crucial that educators begin to curate local knowledge and other ways of knowing and make that available to students so they can better serve their communities.

She says gains have been made in Canada. Indigenous social work scholars are making their perspectives known, but Schmid believes there is significantly more work to be done when it comes to teaching social work in a contextualized way. “This means decolonizing the classroom and helping students recognize historical and contemporary oppression and respect for community expertise,” adds Schmid. “Only then will we ensure our future social work practitioners are able to engage in a meaningful, relevant and respectful manner in all contexts.” 

“This means decolonizing the classroom and helping students recognize historical and contemporary oppression and respect for community expertise. Only then will we engage in a meaningful, relevant and respectful manner in all contexts.”

Dr. Jeanette Schmid

VIU Social Work Professor