Unit Outline

The unit focuses on key contexts of social work practice in the human services. By developing this understanding, you will gain knowledge of how you can practice effectively and influence these contexts to enhance outcomes for social work clients. Through a critical lens, you will examine ethical decision-making models, policy frameworks, legal and justice models and organisational theory. You will consider their relevance to contemporary human service organisations and for informing social work practice. Importantly, the unit emphasises lived experience and cultural diversity as key considerations for all practice contexts. This includes examining the need to decolonise institutional arrangements and on-the-ground practices using a diverse range of knowledge, including First Nations perspectives. Critical analysis and reflection is consistently used throughout the unit to challenge you to work respectfully with each other and in culturally relevant ways as a part of team projects. At all times, you are expected to demonstrate your commitment to professional standards that are presented in the Australian Association of Social Work (AASW) Practice Standards and the AASW Code of Ethics.

Intended Learning Outcomes

As per the Assessment and Results Policy 1.3, your results will reflect your achievement against specified learning outcomes.

On completion of this unit, you will be able to:


1	Use the diverse range of lived experience knowledge for advocating reforms to discriminatory social policies, laws, service systems and service delivery methods.
2	Apply digital technology creatively, ethically and responsibly to progress the goals of social working all practice domains and settings.
3	Examine the foundations of relational and self-reflective practices that facilitate respectful access and application of culturally relevant knowledge in social work.
4	Examine the foundations of ethical decision-making by engaging in reflective practices that are culturally and professionally relevant.
5	Analyse experiences of ethical and moral dissonance that occur in organisational, policy and legal settings and consider their resolution.

Requisites


REQUISITE TYPE	REQUISITES
Pre-requisite	200 credit points from the Bachelor of Social Work with Honours

Alterations as a result of student feedback

Student feedback from 2024 incorporated into the 2025 iteration.

How your final result is determined

To pass this unit, you need to demonstrate your attainment of each of the Intended Learning Outcomes, achieve a final unit grade of 50% or greater, and pass any hurdle tasks.

Academic progress review

The results for this unit may be included in a review of your academic progress. For information about progress reviews and what they mean for all students, see Academic Progress Review in the Student Portal.

Submission of assignments

Where practicable, assignments should be submitted to an assignment submission folder in MYLO. You must submit assignments by the due date or receive a penalty (unless an extension of time has been approved by the Unit Coordinator). Students submitting any assignment in hard copy, or because of a practicum finalisation, must attach a student cover sheet and signed declaration for the submission to be accepted for marking.

Academic integrity

Academic integrity is about acting responsibly, honestly, ethically, and collegially when using, producing, and communicating information with other students and staff members.

In written work, you must correctly reference the work of others to maintain academic integrity. To find out the referencing style for this unit, see the assessment information in the MyLO site, or contact your teaching staff. For more detail about Academic Integrity, see Important Guidelines & Support.

Requests for extensions

If you are unable to submit an assessment task by the due date, you should apply for an extension.

A request for an extension should first be discussed with your Unit Coordinator or teaching support team where possible. A request for an extension must be submitted by the assessment due date, except where you can provide evidence it was not possible to do so. Typically, an application for an extension will be supported by documentary evidence: however, where it is not possible for you to provide evidence please contact your Unit Coordinator.

The Unit Coordinator must notify you of the outcome of an extension request within 3 working days of receiving the request.

Late penalties

Assignments submitted after the deadline will receive a late penalty of 5% of the original available mark for each calendar day (or part day) that the assignment is late. Late submissions will not be accepted more than 10 calendar days after the due date, or after assignments have been returned to other students on a scheduled date, whichever occurs first. Further information on Late Penalties can be found on the Assessments and Results Procedure.

Required Resources

Required reading materials

You can access the Reading List for this unit from the link in MyLO, or by going to the Reading Lists page on the University Library website.

The list of weekly readings (book chapters and journal articles) is provided below. Required readings must be completed prior to that week’s tutorial.

Week 1

Required:

Morley, C., Ablett, P., & Macfarlane, S. (2019). The critical potential of social work. In Engaging with social work: A critical introduction (2nd ed., pp. 1-32). Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.

Walter, M., & Baltra-Ulloa, J. (2019) Australian Social Work is White. B. Bennet & S. Green. (Eds). Our Voices: Aboriginal Social Work (2nd ed. pp. 65-85). Red Globe Press.

Week 2

Required:

McAuliffe, D., Boddy, J., & Chenoweth, L., (2023). Locating the lighthouse: Values and ethics in practice. The road to social work and human service practice (7th ed., pp. 53-82). South Melbourne: Cengage Learning

Australian Association of Social Workers. (2020). Code of Ethics. Australian Association of Social Workers. Retrieved from http://www.aasw.asn.au/practitioner-resources/code-of-ethics.

Australian Institute of Family Studies. (2023). Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse and Neglect. Retrieved from: https://aifs.gov.au/resources/resource-sheets/mandatory-reporting-child-abuse-and-neglect

Recommended/Optional:

Australian Institute of Family Studies. (2023). Mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect: CFCA Resource Sheet — August 2023. Retrieved from https://aifs.gov.au/resources/resource-sheets/mandatory-reporting-child-abuse-and-neglect

Week 3

Required:

Gough, J., & Spencer, E. (2019). Ethical social work practice in the technological era. In S.M. Marson, Jr Robert., & R.E. McKinney. (Eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Social Work Ethics and Values (pp. 251 - 256), Taylor & Francis.

Boddy, J., & Dominelli, L. (2017). Social media and social work: The challenges of a new ethical space. Australian Social Work, 70(2), 172-184.

Week 4

Required:

Reamer, F.G. (2019). Boundary issues and dual relationships in social work (Eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Social Work Ethics and Values (pp. 157-163), Taylor & Francis.

Green, S. (2018) Aboriginal people and caring within a colonised society. In B. Pease, A. Vreugdenhil & S. Stanford (Eds.). Critical ethics of care in social work: Transforming the politics and practices of caring. (pp. 139-146). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Week 5

Required:

Ozanne, E., & Rose, D. (2013). The changing context of human service practice. In The organisational context of human service practice (pp. 1-16). South Yarra, Victoria: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bennett, B., & Zubrzycki, J. (2003). Hearing the stories of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social workers: Challenging and educating the system. Australian Social Work, 56(1), 61–70.

Recommended/Optional:

Okun, T. (1999). White supremacy culture. Retrieved from: https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/uploads/4/3/5/7/43579015/okun_-_white_sup_culture_2020.pdf.

Harris, J. (2015) (Against) Neoliberal social work. Critical and Radical Social Work, 2(1), 7–22.

Week 6

Required:

Thorn, P., Hill, N., Lamblin, M., The, Z., Battersby-Coulter, R., Rice, S., Bendall, S., Gibson, K., Finlay, S., Blandon, R., de Souza, L., West, A., Cooksey, A., Sciglitano, J., Goodrich, S., & Robinson, J. (2020). Developing a Suicide Prevention Social Media Campaign with Young People (The #Chatsafe Project): Co-Design Approach. JMIR Ment Health, 7(5) e18626.

Black, B., Hendry, B., Conley Wright, A., Collings, S. (2023) Co-Design with People with Lived Experience: Designing Resources to Communicate with Children and Young People in Care about their Family Time Contact Visits, The British Journal of Social Work, 53(3) 1352–1367. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcac235

Week 7

Required:

Humphreys, C., Healey, L., Kirkwood, D., & Nicholson, D. (2018). Children living with domestic violence: A differential response through multi-agency collaboration. Australian Social Work, 71(2), 162-174.

Taylor, K. P., Bessarab, D., Hunter, L. & Thompson, S. C. (2023). Aboriginal-mainstream partnerships: exploring the challenges and enhancers of a collaborative service arrangement for Aboriginal clients with substance use issues, BMC Health Services Research, 13(12) 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-13-12

Week 8

Required:

Carson, E., & Kerr, L. (2020). Fundamental debates in social policy. In Australian social policy and the human services (3rd ed., pp. 11-38). Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.

Week 9

Required:

McClelland, A., & Marston, G. (2020). A framework for understanding and action. In A. McClelland, P. Smyth., & Marston, G. (Eds.), Social policy in Australia: Understanding for action (4th ed., pp. 41-74). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Week 10

Required:

O’Connor, D., Thomas, E., White, K., & Morley, C. (2016). The challenges, triumphs and learning from participating in an Australian social work students’ activist group. Critical and Radical Social Work, 4(2), 289-99.

Week 11

Required:

Swain, P. (2018). Why social work and the law? In S. Rice, A. Day, & L. Briskman (Eds.), Social work in the shadow of the law (5th ed., pp. 2-8). Sydney: The Federation Press.

Nipperess, S., & Williams, C. (2019). The ethical, legal and policy context of critical multicultural practice. In S. Nipperess & C. Williams (Eds.), Critical multicultural practice: New perspectives and practices (pp. 50-65). NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin.

Week 12

Required:

Taylor, A., & Frost, A. (2017). Social work and the justice system. In M. Connolly, L. Harms, & J. Maidment (Eds.), Social work contexts and practice (4th ed., pp. 235-249). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Week 13

Required:

Fernando, N., & Ranasinghe, P. (2023). Integration of Artificial Intelligence in Social Work: Opportunities, Challenges, and Considerations. Journal of Computational Social Dynamics, 8(9), 13-24. Retrieved from https://vectoral.org/index.php/JCSD/article/view/35.