The task in this first assignment is for you to investigate what you think is:
– a major challenge (problem/difficulty), and
– a major opportunity (emerging option)
for social work from what has been examined in the first five topics of the program.
The first five topics of the program are.
In your introduction, you need to briefly mention a number of different possibilities, and then concentrate on one challenge and one
opportunity that you find particularly interesting, important or relevant for social work.
You may choose to argue that there are opportunities and challenges in a single topic. For example, you might say that ‘globalisation’
(Topic 1) is both a danger and a chance for the profession to do some real good.
Similarly, you might want to argue that new technology (Topic 5) is both a wonderful chance for social work to do its work more creatively
and yet is also a problem as the rise of mediated communication, for example, is encouraging less accountable, more unstable interpersonal
connections.
Tips:
1. Use the first person and speak to the reader as you go, e.g. ‘I am not sure of all the ways new technology impacts on social work,
however I will use this assignment to experiment with a point of view.’