A Human Rights Approach to Macro Social Work Field Education with Unaccompanied Immigrant Children
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A Human Rights Approach to Macro Social Work Field Education with Unaccompanied Immigrant Children Kerri Evans 1
&
Thomas M. Crea 2
&
Ximena Soto 2
Accepted: 29 October 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract In recent years, record numbers of unaccompanied immigrant children have migrated to the USA, with 2019 being the highest year yet. The majority of unaccompanied children have overcome traumatic experiences and violations of their human rights in their home countries or on their journey to the USA, and/or in US detention centers. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights outlines guaranteed basic rights for every person everywhere, and the National Association of Social Workers code of ethics outlines social workers’ responsibility to challenge social injustices. Social workers have a role in advocating for the human rights of all people, including unaccompanied children. Macro social work roles—including roles such as advocacy and policy work, research, capacity building, community education, and management—are critical to addressing and ameliorating the human rights violations faced by unaccompanied immigrant children (UC). In this article, we introduce unaccompanied children as a vulnerable population, outline the human rights violations they commonly face in the USA, and offer implications and suggestions for schools of social work, social work curricula, and social work field education. We believe that effective training and field placements will better prepare the next generation of social workers and create a pipeline of knowledgeable professionals to help unaccompanied children and their families. Therefore, we highlight ways in which schools of social work, field placement agencies, field supervisors, and students can work to advance the lives of UC by offering specific examples of macro roles for interns. Keywords Unaccompanied children . Social work education . Social work field education . Human rights . Immigrant . Macro
Introduction Social work students are well positioned to advocate for the human rights of their clients and the communities in which they work. It is incumbent upon schools of social work to ensure that what we are teaching is relevant to the populations This is a submission in response to the CALL FOR PAPERS: Preparing Social Work Students for Human Rights Practice: Integrating Human Rights into Field Practica. * Kerri Evans [email protected] Thomas M. Crea [email protected] Ximena Soto [email protected] 1
University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Cir, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA
2
Boston College School of Social Work, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
our students serve, both in the classroom and in the field. In the USA, one in four children is part of an immigrant family (Annie E. Casey Foundation 2017), and therefore, social work students need to learn skills to work with immigrants in both clinical and advocacy roles. An emerging body of literature focuses on addressing the needs of unaccompanied immigrant children (UC) (Berger Cardoso 2018; Crea
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