Education for the Social Services

Abstract

I have always been intrigued by the plastic button boxes which have several compartments and are so constructed that shaking the box is all that is required to sort the different sized buttons into the appropriate sections of the box. I wish that we could have such a box for sorting the educational dilemmas which face us in the services. In the absence of such a box, I would like to explore some of the educational issues which affect the education of and others who are employed in the services. Social have traditionally been considered as the primary staff for the services. Indeed, work has often been confused with or equated with the services. In North America work has been further identified as meaning professional who have received their professional training in a post-baccalaureate programme in a university. In reality of course the majority of staff employed in the services have not had professional work training. Many social workers have received their training on the job. In fact the MSW (Master of Social Work) graduates formed an elite group, who though trained for practice, were very rapidly promoted to supervise, train, and administer. This contributed in part to the recent movement in Canada (and even more recently in the United States), to the development of undergraduate programmes for professional education in work. In addition we have had, with the rise of the community college, new programmes of one and two year's duration which have produced social service workers or welfare workers.