Conclusion

This free course introduced approaches to critical social work practice. You explored how social work interventions can be improved by critical practice, focusing particularly on how to involve people with lived experience in meaningful ways.

Barnett’s model (Figure 1) was presented as a helpful way of thinking about its relevance for social work. In particular, the model addresses many of the complexities of social work practice, including those you will be expected to work with in your final practice placement.

Social work is about relationships. It is often done in conjunction with others: in supervision, through collaboration with people with lived experience, and with other social work and interprofessional colleagues. As you have seen, becoming a critical practitioner is not an end point, but is rather an ongoing process involving reflection and action.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course K355 Critical thinking in social work practice.