School of Social Services
In the past year, Social services has consolidated a myriad of programmes under a single structure: human services. This could be considered best practice in transformation. For these programmes Sustainable Practioner is enmeshed in a discipline understanding of social justice. Key is social justice and sustainable relationships within contexts of economic relationships, Ecological social justice resources etc.
The Diploma philosophy statement includes:
Students are encouraged to act with integrity, honesty and congruency in all aspects of their study. Sustainability, encompassed in social justice and establishing and maintaining healthy community relationships to promote positive change, provided the opportunity to access pastoral care, supervision, support services and work together to ensure maximum opportunity for success in this programme.
Key Points
- Started a whole raft of programme redevelopments at the same time the sustainability goals were initiated at Otago Polytechnic
- Embedded social justice, advocacy , fostering support and relationships
- First looked at graduate profiles – included a clear piece about well-trained, ethical, safe practitioners sustainable in the Social Services field
- We used to have a whole lot of little specific programmes that struggled for numbers. Now have specialties built into core programmes which are more financially sustainable to deliver.