In this special feature follow-up episode, our crew member Nate speaks with Tamara and Mai from Students Against Placement Poverty (SAPP) Queensland branch. They discuss the growing concern and movement forward in the efforts to secure paid placement for students in social work and human service degrees and other helping professions. The activist group members speak about the vision and goals of SAPP to support placement students who are struggling. Mai and Tamara outline the key challenges of completing the unpaid placement, disrupting the notion of 1000 hours of placement as the gold standard and the personal, social, and political implications of current placement directives. Both share their own placement experience and encourage Nate to share his experience as an international student. They acknowledge their lived and living experience as similar to students’ stories in the research conducted by Christine Morley and associates. The SAPP members provide insights about the work being done to address the concerns including the role played by the University Accord and the role that might be played by the AASW to enact change. 

Transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E7gauJG1mMRFOaiHtoX1SL8P0599KkB3/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=103726718570283534995&rtpof=true&sd=true

Resources:

SAPP Instagram: https://instagram.com/SAPPQLD

          Facebook:  https://facebook.com/SAPPQLD

Why students need to be paid for work placements:

https://theconversation.com/we-can-no-longer-justify-unpaid-labour-why-uni-students-need-to-be-paid-for-work-placements-203421

Three ways to fix student work placements:

https://theconversation.com/it-is-impossible-for-me-to-be-unpaid-3-ways-to-fix-student-work-placements-213151

Universities Accord interim report: https://www.education.gov.au/australian-universities-accord

Interview with QLD Students Against Placement Poverty: https://www.qutglass.com/increase-the-volume-an-interview-with-qld-students-against-placement-poverty/

An open letter from SAPP:

https://www.qutglass.com/open-letter-from-sapp/

Change harmful placement models:

https://www.tinyurl.com/SAPPQLD

Keywords: SAPP, students against placement poverty, unpaid placement, 1000 hours, neoliberalism, AASW, University Accord, students stories, international student placements, social justice, inequality, system theory, poststructuralism, feminist theory, call to action

Music By Boe Towah

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