Educating Students for the New Market Realities

Social work is increasingly practiced in the context of managed care and private, fee-for-service arrangements. The authors address the implications of new market realities for the practice of social work; for example, changing fields of social work practice, increased credentialing and reimbursement of social workers, and cost-containment measures which impinge on the social workers’ ability to exercise their professional knowledge and judgment. They suggest that social work educators can prepare students to meet these challenges and function effectively in this changing environment by supplementing existing course content with material that reflects these shifting conditions.