End the Exploitation of Social Work Student Interns!

ACCREDITATION; SOCIAL workers; SOCIAL justice; INTERNSHIP programs; UNIVERSITIES & colleges; CONTRACTING out; GOVERNMENT agencies; SOCIAL work education; STUDENTS; SOCIAL case work; LABOR market; ABILITY; TRAINING

As an exploitative practice institutionalized within social work education, field education is a problem for social work ethics. Unpaid internships are exploitative practices that produce a double bind of exploitation between agency and university. Social workers should oppose exploitation of student interns. Social workers should: (a) advocate for the Department of Labor to clearly define the role of internship field education as a site of labor, (b) advocate for the Council on Social Work Education to explicitly require that social work field education is a paid position, and (c) advocate for greater public funding for social service agencies and social work students. As concrete social action, social workers should organize and participate in the movement against unpaid internships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Social Work Education is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)