Abstract:
The inclusion of animals within social work education is a relatively new, and still rare, component of curriculum development in Australia and New Zealand. To remedy this omission within our final-year social work programmes at The University of Auckland, New Zealand, the authors designed a lecture with two main focal points and with two underpinning agendas. This article summarises the knowledge base and conceptual underpinning of the presentation, which addresses an animal-inclusive consideration of human service organisations in the disaster context and the relationship between domestic/intimate partner violence and animals. Accounts of the active participation of a companion animal within the lecture serve to portray attachment bonds and provide a basic introduction to human-animal interaction. Social work's potential for activism in the field of animal as well as human rights is included, with a call for a re-conceptualisation of a systems-based ecological perspective for human services and social work practice.
