Importance Of Fieldwork In Social Work

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Social work is a people centred discipline that recognizes the complexity of interactions between human beings and their environment. It extensively draws on the theories of human development and behaviour, and social systems to analyze complex situations and to facilitate individual, organizational, social and cultural changes (International Association of Schools of Social Work [IASSW] and International Federation of Social Workers [IFSW], 2000). Being a professional branch of education dealing with the needs of the society, it is imperative for social work to incorporate the changing social conditions and their ramifications along with the significant theoretical and practical advances in the mainstream development concerns, in its curriculum. …show more content…

The supervised and evaluated on-field practicum or the training process that students undertake along with classroom teaching provides them with an indispensable opportunity to apply theoretical methods of the discipline and to deal effectively with human beings in different social situations (Kapoor, 1961). Through fieldwork, students are helped to develop a holistic understanding of the issues, the problems, the situations, the causative factors, and possible strategies of intervention for solving the problems affecting the wellbeing of people. It is here that sustainable livelihoods perspective holds ground by offering a unique starting point for an integrated analysis of complex, highly dynamic contexts. As Baumann (2000) also remarked that this approach is not intended to provide a sophisticated model for theoretical analysis, but one oriented towards a comprehensive and practically focused understanding of ground realities. Fieldwork being the hallmark of social work, awareness of diverse communities, working with individual service users, offering services during disasters, skill of using research, advocacy and evidence based practice, using participatory livelihoods assessment and planning towards social transformation and livelihoods innovation are most important. This will help the social work students in enhancing their professional capacities in terms of the requisite skills that can be applied to strengthen their engagement in managing livelihood related projects effectively in

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