It is helpful to have faculty with different backgrounds in child welfare to offer a broader perspective, but also specifically with experience in the child welfare field. This would really help provide multiple perspectives and improve the perception of child welfare and commitment to this field.
Most participants talked about transformative learning inherently being a part of any Indigenous learning experiences and that learning cultural knowledges is essential for a new way forward that is different than the western framework that has dominated social work education.
When thinking about what is most important in child welfare work and what social work has to offer from the data, if almost always comes down to communications skills and the ability to build trusting relationships in a mandated system at all levels of practice.
There seems to be a need to present a more balanced perspective of child welfare work that is happening on the ground so that students are interested in committing to this field and addressing the larger problems that do exist. Social work has a responsibility to bring our knowledge and skills to the situation. This may also help in building trusting relationships with the community.
Social work education programs need to develop an action plan toward reconciliation in child welfare. Social work is the main profession carrying out the work of the child welfare system, so we have a responsibility to act.
There is so much potential for collaboration between social work programs/educators and child welfare agencies. The participants that I talked to from all sides are interested in building and strengthening these bridges.
We need to consider what learning opportunities and or supports faculty need for being able to facilitate transformative learning experiences and creating brave spaces. This can be vulnerable and risky for educators as well.
Social work programs should consider ways to maintain relationships with graduates working in child welfare. Many students will not be able to return to grad school but are looking for opportunities to continue their learning. Programs can work with agencies to determine what the needs are locally and work together to build more comprehensive professional development opportunities that build on agency training options. Instead of seeing degree completion as an end point of learning – see it as a starting point.
I hope we can build on this research project regarding education scholarship. So that we better understand the experiences of educators and students to be able to transform our own education systems.