Embedding animal-inclusive content into social work education

Abstract

This teaching note discusses the progress that has been made from reflecting on innovative social work student placements with animals (see Author et al., 2020) to embedding animal-inclusive content into existing social work courses at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT) – a tertiary education provider at the top of the South Island in Aotearoa New Zealand.  A collaboration between NMIT and The Nelson Ark, where the focus of work is animal assisted intervention (AAI) with youth, has advanced three accumulative animal-inclusive teaching sessions for Bachelor of Social Work students across the final three years of the four-year degree. With this background, the authors acknowledge that the inclusion of animals in social work research and practice is gaining traction. Yet, attention to human-animal relations remains on the periphery of the conventional social work curriculum and student learning experience. By turning our focus to social work placements, we developed a fresh appreciation of human-animal relations, and we propose that both field education and class-based course content about animal-inclusive practice affords valuable pedagogy. Accordingly, this teaching note shares the background, progress and next steps in the development of animal-inclusive course content.