Disability competency in social work education: Tools for practice teaching

Abstract

Social work education has been slow at integrating components of disability studies into its curricula, despite increasing prevalence of social work practice with disabled people. The profession has historically ascribed to a medical model of disability and it has struggled with how best to support service users living with disabilities. Social workers’ attitudes towards disabled people form an essential component to rapport building and working relationships with persons with disabilities. Most social work graduates encounter disabled people in their practice, so incorporating assessment tools in training and field education may assist educators in evaluating students who will be working with this population. Indeed, ample evidence suggests that field instructors require additional assessment tools for evaluating students’ preparedness for the field (Vinton & Wilke, 2011). This paper has three objectives: 1) to review disability competence within the social work profession in the North American context, 2) to compare the validity, practicality, and theoretical frameworks of two disability attitudinal scales as potential assessment tools for student evaluations, and 3) to offer recommendations for the implication of social work education and practice.