Introduction

I am a practice educator currently working in an undergraduate social work programme at Plymouth University. I have responsibility for developing and supporting practice learning arrangements and for working with students, both in placement and in the classroom, to facilitate their learning and professional development.

For the last seven years, I have been actively developing placements where students are directly involved in, and contributing to, a range of projects aiming to:

• • improve and create access for people to natural green space;

• • engage people more closely with food production;

• • provide reparation or training opportunities benefitting the natural environment; and

• • offer therapeutic benefit through horticultural or recreational activity.

My efforts have been located within first-year individual and group placements. My aims are to:

• • reveal the benefits of closer alliance with the natural environment;

• • advance an appreciation in students of the interdependence between social and environmental justice;

• • develop awareness of how environmental conditions affect well-being; and

• • identify approaches that they may apply to their practice.

In this chapter, I will explore the work that I have undertaken regarding sustainability and social work. It will reflect my own personal, transformational experiences and how my practice as a social work educator has developed more broadly as a result. I will first locate my work in wider global and vocational contexts and discuss some of the strategies that I have developed in response to the challenges and opportunities that the work has presented. I will also consider the impact that my work has had on student learning, as well as my own, with a view to establishing future directions in advancing environmental social work.

The inspiration for the initiatives described in this chapter came from my attendance at Schumacher College's ‘Roots of Learning’ course in early 2007, supported and funded by the Centre for Sustainable Futures (a Centre of Excellence for Teaching and Learning financed by the Higher Education Funding Council for England to promote Education for Sustainable Development) based at Plymouth University (see Schumacher College, no date). Subtitled ‘Education as a Springboard for Transformation’, the course was specifically designed for teachers and academics who were interested in introducing sustainability into schools and higher education.