ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL COLLABORATION: A STRATEGIC RELATIONSHIP FOR TRANSFORMATIONAL IMPACT IN SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE

Abstract

The importance of professional collaboration and partnership across sectors has become more important among fast changing society and growing complexity of social concerns and recognized by the United Nations in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 17. Effective interventions and progress of the field of social work depend on the cooperation between practice partners and social work training institutions. Given the emphasis of Social
Work Act 2022, emphasises on flexible and responsive social work practices, this papertherefore emphasized the need for interaction between academic institutions and practicepartners. This paper focuses on the need and impact of collaboration between practicepartners and social work educators for transformational service delivery and enforcement of Social Work Act 2022. This discourse is hinged on the theories of social exchange andsocial
system. It also re-echoes the philosophy of Ubuntu in relation to collaboration and supports proactive strategy to deepen these academic and professional collaboration in social work practice. The paper recommends stronger link between the academic and practice partners fora transformed social work practice.