Social workers trained and raring to go

Single mother Kylie Harding says she wants to use her own experience to assist others. Photo / Martin Sykes

The first graduates from a Manukau social work degree course are preparing to start work to help the communities they come from.

Manukau Institute of Technology created its social work degree after requests from Otara residents that social workers be "just like them".

The polytechnic's degree attracts second-chance learners who have built up non-educational experiences.

The first intake of students will complete the three-year degree course at the end of the year and most have jobs lined up.

The school's head, Cath Dickey, said there was a concern that many people interested in becoming social workers pulled out of study because they were overwhelmed by the workload or by the academic side of the course.

But she said it was important that social workers, working with beneficiaries for example, understood the cycle that made it so difficult to come off the benefit because they had been there themselves.

Many of the current bachelor of social work students had not studied since they were 15, but Ms Dickey said the course was aiming for a 97 per cent completion rate.

Kylie Harding never thought she would study beyond the fifth form but now she is on her way to completing her degree course, and started a work placement this week.

For the solo mother of two who "only just" passed School Certificate English and science the second time round, and worked in hospitality ever since, the thought of going back to the classroom was daunting.

It was after domestic violence that resulted in her appealing to social services for help that she considered using her experience to help others.

She knows that many people who need social workers "never thought it would happen to them" because she never thought she would be the victim of domestic violence.

Ms Harding said she surprised herself when she realised she was familiar with course content - such as the court system and the policies of political parties - through her life experience.

Sociology was a lot of what she already knew packaged in academic wording.

"I just sat in class and everything fell into place," she said.

The chairwoman of the Association of Social Work Educators, Dr Lynne Briggs, said the organisation was fighting for more money to train social workers.

The association fought for legislation requiring social workers to hold degrees, but funding had not followed the needs of the profession, she said.

And now because they were struggling to provide the small tutor-student ratios necessary for training, some social work courses were looking at having to close because of a lack of funding, despite the profession ranking high up the Government list of skills shortages, Dr Briggs said.

The head of Auckland University's school of counselling, human services and social work, Liz Beddoe, said she was more concerned with retention in the profession than in study.

Universities changed their social work degrees from three to four years in 2007 and consequently the number of Maori students had dropped, which she said was also a worry.