Capturing opportunities in the development of a new 4 year social work degree: Using collaborative practice principles to inspire creativity, uniqueness and professional autonomy in the midst of complex change

Abstract or Summary

The New Zealand Social Work Registration Board determined in early 2013 that the recognized social work degree qualification for registration will become a 4 year degree. The Centre for Health and Social Practice (CHASP) at Wintec, Hamilton, New Zealand, is therefore in the process of developing a new 4 year social work degree program and as such has an opportunity to create a vision and a program that reflects its unique national (and international) position in the social work education arena. This has exciting potential; and project development is underway for the new degree to be delivered at the beginning of 2015. The social work teaching team at CHASP sits in a unique position in the midst of this planning, and significant opportunity exists to capture and realize new practice and teaching ideas as the changes unfold. This opportunity is even greater given the recent creation of the Centre for Health and Social Practice which has resulted in the amalgamation of teaching professionals across a wide range of disciplines. Wintec also supports the collaboration of teaching across campus and some interesting cross-disciplinary projects have been initiated. The growing wealth of literature in the area of collaborative practice is generating a number of practice principles and models to support successful collaborative ventures. These concepts will be applied to the “four year degree project” as it unfolds. The process by which the social work teaching team go about envisioning the nature of this new degree, using key principles of collaborative practice, will be presented as a piece of work “in progress” highlighting and evaluating a model by which a social work team can contribute to the future of a unique degree qualification.