What is it about?
A national study of 2320 social work students in Australia found that large numbers of students were going without food and other necessities. Long hours of paid employment and lack of finances were adversely affecting their study. Financial stress became acute for many students at the time of the compulsory field placements. There is an urgent need for national bodies, academics and students to advocate together more strongly for increased financial support for social work students.
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Why is it important?
This is one of the largest national studies of social work students to date. The high levels of financial stress were surprising and alarming.
Perspectives
I am still amazed that we managed to pull together this large study, involving 29 universities and that we got responses from a quarter of all social work students. I would love other researchers to build on our work. Hint - our questionnaire is publicly available.
Len Baglow
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Australian social work students: Balancing tertiary studies, paid work and poverty, Journal of Social Work, February 2018, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1468017318760776.
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