Professional Social Work: Perspectives On Practice And Extension

Practice and extension are basic essential elements of professional social work. Social work education cannot be offered without practice and extension. The absence of a national council to regulate and prescribe standards and provide accreditation, professional social work education has been trapped and straight-jacketed by the conventional systems and procedures of arts and science education. Majority of social work educators are not able to practice because of the heavy burden of academic workload and majority of practitioners do not get involved in teaching due to various constraints. Practice and extension need to be streng-thened and inextricably interwoven with social work education in order to take the profession to greater heights. This volume contains papers reporting some experiences with practice and extension and insights drawn by social work educators, students, practitioners and researchers.

Dr. Ilango Ponnuswami is currently Professor and Head, Department of Social Work, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli. Earlier, he served as a Reader in Social Work at the Bishop Heber College, Tiruchirappalli for about 22 years. He was awarded the Ph.D Degree in Social Work by the Bharathidasan University in 1996.
Dr. Abraham Francis is a social worker, social activist and an academic who has worked since 1989 in various fields of social development. Prior to migrating to Australia, he was a Social Work Lecturer in Delhi University, India. He also worked as Senior Mental Health Social Worker with the Country Health SA before moving to Townsville to join James Cook University as a Lecturer in Social Work.