The Social Practice team hosted the national hui and annual general meeting for the Council for Social Work Education in Aotearoa New Zealand (CSWEANZ) at the Waitākere Campus on 27-28 November.
The CSWEANZ represents social work educators and academic leaders from universities, wānanga, ITPs and private training establishments.
Around forty participants attended the hui, coming from across the motu, from as far north as Whangārei to the south in Ōtautahi (Christchurch) and Ōtepoti (Dunedin).
The hui included informative, challenging and interactive sessions on Pacific knowledge in social work, and the dilemmas associated with generative AI, especially large language models.
The session on Pacific knowledge invited kaimahi to be aware of the personal life stories they bring into the social work profession, particularly for Pacific peoples, and offered a challenge that social workers are often called to “live on the edge” when it comes to maintaining relationships in a context of tensions.
The session on AI attempted some deep analysis of complex ethical issues for social workers and social work educators.
Kaimahi were challenged to think through a range of possible ethical positions from: LLMs (Large Language Models) are inevitable and represent the future of social work education. Positive and proactive engagement with this technology is essential for educators and students alike, to LLMs are fundamentally unethical. Their massive carbon footprint and reliance on exploited ‘ghost labour’, violate social and environmental justice. They undermine the principles of a new eco-social world order, enhance techno-colonialism, and amplify the unprecedented power of Big Tech. As part of a wider governmental shift towards AI they have the potential to increase surveillance and undermine democracy. LLMs, and all AI, must be resisted and rejected.
“It was very enriching for professional development to be able to allow significant time for in-depth engagement with these topics rather than the more common series of 15-minute presentations we often experience at conferences,” says Senior Lecturer, Peter Matthewson.
“A vital aspect of the hui was the participation of several of our ākonga, in delivering the whaikōrero for the mihi whakatau and engaging in the sessions, as well as volunteering with the hui administration. Involvement of ākonga in the hui was a first for CSWEANZ and was warmly commended by our guests.”
Mr Matthewson adds: “overall this was a highly successful time, it may not be an exaggeration to suggest that Unitec has set the standard for other hosting institutes to follow in years to come.”
