Dementia: challenges for social work education in Europe

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Abstract

Dementia has been identified as a global challenge across the spectrum of health and social care (World Health Organisation. (2012) Dementia: A public health priority. Geneva: WHO). This paper will explore the implications of this for social work education and the challenges it poses. There is a lack of this focus on social work with older people and people with dementia (pwd) in social work education. Based on calls for an infusion of content on ageing and dementia in social work curricula, paper proposes that we should adopt a person-centred philosophy alongside gerontological social work competencies to achieve this. The specific aim of this paper, therefore, is to explore how we can use these ideas as teaching tools to engage social work students in the discourse on dementia and to develop appropriate skills to work with pwd, their families and carers.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)422-428
Number of pages7
JournalEuropean Journal of Social Work
Volume20
Issue number3
Early online date17 Apr 2017
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2017

Keywords

  • Ageing
  • dementia
  • gerontological competencies
  • person-centred
  • social work education

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