Repositioning risk in social work education: Reflections arising from the threat of SARS to social work students in Hong Kong during their field practicum

Repositioning risk in social work education: Reflections arising from the threat of SARS to social work students in Hong Kong during their field practicum

• Leung, Terry Tse Fong Chinese University of Hong Kong
• Lam, Ching Man Chinese University of Hong Kong
• Wong, Hung Chinese University of Hong Kong

Social Work Education, 26(4), 389-398, 2007

Routledge

2007

• G Curriculum, Teaching & Learning: Specific Disciplines
  • GH Sport Science, Health & Welfare
• N Students & Student Services
  • NJ Career Counselling & Placement
• N Students & Student Services
  • NC Charactieristics & Conditions of Students; Opinion & Attitudes of Students, Problems of Adjustment

Social Work Education SARS (Disease) Communicable Diseases Social Service College Students Practicums Student Teaching Risk Factors Chinese University of Hong Kong Reflection Risk

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Post-Secondary Education

The social work profession has always been involved in dealing with uncertainty and risk in the life politics of clients. However, it is not easy for young social work students to translate this philosophical disposition into their real life practice with clients. In spring 2003, when the SARS epidemic broke out in Hong Kong, a group of social work students from the Chinese University of Hong Kong were doing their fieldwork practicum. Suddenly confronted by a collective sense of risk in their role as social workers, the students went through a period of unrest, as performing their helping duties brought with it a simultaneous exposure to personal risk. This paper is based on four focus group interviews with these social work students, to understand how they processed their experience of risk during their exposure to the SARS crisis, and how they connected the experience to their social work practice with clients. It is found that the predicament arising from the exposure to personal risk brought about by the SARS crisis during the students' field placement engendered the reflective process that enabled a renewed and personalized meaning of professionalism. The results provide a basis for reflection among social work educators on the role of risk in the training of prospective social workers, and on how social work education can better prepare students for practice in a high-risk environment.
[Copyright of Social Work Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02615470601081704]

• English

Journal Articles

• 02615479

• 10.1080/02615470601081704

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/bcc541b3

2010-09-27