Poverty-aware social work practice: A conceptual framework for social work education

Despite the profound commitment of social work toward people living in poverty, the social work profession has failed to develop practice based on awareness of poverty. This article shows the ways in which poverty became a marginal issue in social work practice, reviews the literature on teaching poverty in international context, and then explicates the expected educational results and the main course and fieldwork contents. The proposed framework for poverty-aware social work education includes knowledge acquisition, structuring of professional values, skills development, and experiencing. A consideration of the ways in which this content may be integrated into the existing social work curriculum concludes this article.