Social Work Practica in Family Defense: A Model for Critical Field Education

Over the last two decades, there has been a growing movement in social work education calling for the centering of anti-oppressive and critical approaches. As field education is considered social work’s “signature pedagogy,” it must central to any program of critical social work education. This study explores a type field education site that explicitly engages in the activism and resistance work inherent in critical practice – holistic family defense. Ten social work field instructors from nine different family defense practices were interviewed about the structure, goals, and perceived outcomes of their internship programs and recommendations for expanding social work practica in family defense and related contexts. Results illustrate how field placements in family defense practices allow students to increase their awareness of how racism, classism, and misogyny are enacted and reproduced through government systems, learn to question the dominant discourses around ideas of “protecting children,” re-examine social work’s participation and collusion in systems of control, and engage in the direct work of challenging systems of oppression and injustice. Recommendations are made for expanding social work practica in family defense and developing additional sites for critical field education.