Social Policy Curricula for Training Social Workers: Towards a Model

This paper analyses (a) the content and teaching methods of social policy subjects taught to social work students in Australia; (b) the factors that affect the development of social policy curricula; and (c) a model for developing the social policy curriculum for training human services professionals. It examines the objectives and topics, reading material, and teaching and assessment methods employed in social policy subjects. The analysis suggests that the subjects had a wide range of objectives and to achieve those objectives the subjects covered several relevant topics and prescribed a variety of reading materials. A combination of multiple teaching and assessment methods was employed. The author identifies factors that influence the development of social policy curricula and suggests a rudimentary and flexible model for developing comprehensive social policy curricula. The analysis and the model are intended to aid practitioners and educators who are interested in developing new subjects or revising the existing ones.