Integrating Indigenous Family Structures in Social Work Education

In this episode, we are joined by host Libby Hammond and guest Shirley Young, an Aboriginal social worker from South Australia. The conversation challenges Western frameworks that dominate social work education and practice. Shirley shares personal and professional insights on the long-standing colonial impacts on Aboriginal communities that highlight how assimilation policies, intergenerational trauma, and systemic distrust shape present-day interactions with social workers.

She also introduces the richness and resilience of Aboriginal kinship structures, illustrating how expansive and supportive extended family systems differ from Western nuclear models. The episode calls on future social workers to deeply listen, understand Indigenous perspectives, and value culturally grounded ways of knowing, being, and doing. Through stories and reflective dialogue, this episode is a call to action and a guide for integrating Indigenous knowledge into social work education. A reminder to shift from theory to practice in meaningful and respectful ways.