Preparing Social Work Graduates to Support Transformative Engagement with Mental Health Systems

As mental health social work educators in Canada and Australia, the authors of this chapter welcome international calls for transformative paradigms addressing poor mental health and mental healthcare globally. The authors have introduced educational practices into curricula to prepare future practitioners to participate in this change. This chapter presents examples of the educational practices that have been designed with these purposes in mind, critically examining how these teaching practices prepare students for mental health social work that engages in transformative micro, meso, and macro change. Social work plays a critical role in fostering the social inclusion of people living with mental distress, yet social work education literature identifies gaps in mental health and addiction training in social work; gaps with impact on the entry-to-practice skills and confidence needed to engage in social justice-oriented practice in the field. Using a critically reflective case study methodology, selected and varied social work educational assessment activities designed to support students to draw upon their own and the social work profession’s commitment to human rights and social justice are included. Given that biomedical approaches and neoliberal policy dominate the practice field in mental health, the potential of teaching practices to prepare students for practice scaffolded by decolonization, post-structuralism, and critical social work theory and reflect on how social justice and human rights can be positioned at the heart of mental health social work curricula is explored.