Critical reflection involves the identification of deeply seated assumptions about the social world and the individual’s connection with it; however, its scope and practice are contested. While ambivalence about its definition remains, critical reflection is described as a threshold concept in social welfare and social work education. This study investigated students’ conceptualisations of critical reflection by analysing the ‘learned’ critical reflection curricula of five core units in an Australian University. A content analysis of 162 assignments submitted by 86 students in 2013 and 2014 was conducted. Findings revealed students conceptualised critical reflection as a process that raised self-awareness, supported the application of theory in practice and, reinforced aspects of their professional identity. However, students adapted the process to fit their purpose and, when personal views clashed with professional practice, rather than examining the tensions that emerged, students privileged professional practice and silenced their personal views. Students did not engage with critical reflection to foster social change; rather their utilitarian approach positioned them to demonstrate competence in professional procedures. These findings highlight the influence of the contexts within which critical reflection is practised and informs the further development of the authors’ pedagog

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) holds significant potential to advance the field of social work, yet it brings forth considerable challenges and risks. Key concerns include the legal and ethical ramifications of GAI application, as well as its effects on the vital human connections inherent in social work. Nonetheless, educators in this field must ready their students for the evolving digital environment, ensuring they are adept at employing GAI thoughtfully, skillfully, and ethically. This article will explore the integration of GAI knowledge and skills within educational settings. It will feature a case study detailing the author’s redesign of community welfare and social work degree assignments to include GAI within a community welfare/social work undergraduate course in Queensland, Australia. The discussion will extend to curriculum and assessment development processes aimed at leveraging GAI to enhance student learning, knowledge retention, and confidence in applying GAI within their academic and professional pursuits. Furthermore, the article will examine the implications for curriculum and assessment design, emphasizing the importance of clear learning objectives, the creation of specific, intricate, and contextualized assessments, the necessity for students to critically evaluate GAI outputs, and the challenge of presenting GAI with tasks beyond its capabilities.

Effective working relationships are those which are characterised by close personal contact, even friendship-like in nature, contained within professional boundaries. However, such personal ways of working remain a contentious aspect of professional relationships. Indeed, workers operating in this way commonly experience disapproval from colleagues. Guidance regarding how workers build personalised professional relationships while operating in a disapproving environment is limited. This is even more pronounced for building relationships with families where child neglect is an issue. This paper draws on a study of perceptions of eight parent–family worker relationship cases in New South Wales, Australia. The study utilised qualitative research methods to analyse and compare participants' perceptions of the experiences and meaning of working relationships with families where child neglect is an issue. The paper will explore how the workers' use of friendship-like characteristics to build highly personalised, yet professional and ethical, relationships created discord with some colleagues, including accusations of unprofessional and unethical practice. Drawing on these workers' experiences, along with literature that challenges traditional ways of working with clients, it will be argued that dominant ideas about ethical and professional practice hinder the development of effective relationships with clients, create unnecessary stress for workers, and should be challenged.

Child neglect is a persistent social issue in Australia, with factors that hinder efforts to intervene. Of particular concern are difficulties that have been raised regarding building working relationships with parents where child neglect is a concern. This article draws on findings of an Australian qualitative study that explored in depth multiple perspectives on the development of relationships between family workers and parents where neglect is a concern. It was found that the process of building trust, which was central to the establishment of the working relationship and increased parent willingness to engage in child-welfare related interventions, was something the parents in the study engaged in actively. They did this through testing workers’ trustworthiness and by attempting to reduce perceived power inequities between workers and themselves. It is argued that resistance to workers’ attempts to build relationships are a healthy protective response by parents to challenge the professional expectation they submissively build relationships with strangers who wield great influence over their lives, and the lives of others in their family. Implications for professionals include developing greater understanding of why parents might resist attempts to build working relationships, and using this knowledge to accommodate parents’ resistance where it arises.

Many social welfare and social work students struggle to demonstrate competence in the complex process of critical reflection through to the stage of transformed thinking and action. Examples of how students learn critical reflection as an interpretive experience are scarce. This paper presents, as a case study, the process one of the authors experienced while critically reflecting on teaching critical reflection. The paper explores how this approach unlocked disturbing insights into how personally held values, views and knowledge influenced her performance relating to teaching critical reflection. Experiencing what she asks of her students raised questions regarding the duty of care that social welfare and social work educators have to ensure their students engage in critical, and transformative, self-discovery in safe and supportive ways. We propose that in the early stages of social welfare and social work degrees, rather than assessing students’ critical reflection of an event, educators examine students’ capacity to learn critical reflection in a different way. Drawing on critical hermeneutics, and a theory of visual thinking, the paper outlines the cognitive map of a process of critical reflection on teaching critical reflection. We present this as a metaphor of walking through a rainforest.