Abstract

Social work training is central to professional development. Moreover, highly indispensable in training is the aspect of fieldwork placement or attachment for students to have a practical interaction with social work service users and contextualisation of social work theories, values, principles and ethics. This is premised on interactions of the placement organisations, the schools of social work and the students through the formative and summative forms of assessments and administrative processes. However, this paper highlights that there is a myriad of complications or challenges which are faced by students during their period of attachment. The challenges, specifically in the global south, are inherent in universities, ideally schools of social work, organisations of placement and those faced at personal level by students. This paper also highlighted that there stipulated guidelines for fieldwork training and also that there is need interventions for way forward through stipends for students, imparting education on diverse cultures, early supervisions and orientations only to mention a few.

Keywords: Social work, Fieldwork, Social work interns, Fieldwork challenges