Professional experiences for social work students

This section contains information about field work for social work students; it is provided for the students as well as for organisations that are interested in providing field-work experiences.

Field education is a core component of the University of Sydney Social Work program; all field-education courses having full academic status. The field-education program promotes a community-of-learners model (Giles, Small, Irwin & Waugh 2008), aiming to engage all key people in the provision of good learning opportunities in field practice. This entails:

• providing the students with a variety of professional practice tasks
  
  
• challenging students whilst providing peer and professional support
  
  
• developing knowledge and skills
  
  
• linking theory and practice
  
  
• developing a professional identity
  
  
• developing critical-reflection skills.