Rethinking Social Work Education in Italy in Light of the Pandemic: An Overview and a Focus on Fieldwork Education.

The chapter illustrates how the Italian social work education system coped with the pandemic, in a process of redefining the theoretical-methodological teaching activities, field practice and workshops aimed at the connection between theoretical knowledge and practical experience. During the pandemic, professionals, lecturers and students alike needed to change established practices and suddenly adopt new measures and methods, in an environment marked by profound uncertainty. To this purpose, the universities had to reflect and set up new teaching methods. Through a review of the literature, an overview of the national panorama will be proposed, focusing on the creative processes that have enabled the adaptation of training tools and the adoption of remote teaching, allowing universities not to interrupt students' learning paths. After analyzing the resources and limits of the new experiences in classroom teaching and internships, the positive and critical effects of the strong stress due to the emergency will also be considered. Especially with regard to internships, some specific experiences will be examined, in which specific approaches were adopted, in order to combine flexibility, innovation and preservation, within a relationship of close collaboration with services and professionals in the field. Finally, some massages are proposed, looking to the post-pandemic future and at the possibility of making some innovative practices useful for improving knowledge and skills learning.