Lessons Learned from Three Projects Linking Social Work, the Arts, and Humanities

The aims of this paper are to illustrate how social workers can collaborate with designers and artists in addressing social issues facing communities and to identify the implications of such collaboration for social work education. The authors examine three projects linking social work, the arts, and humanities [Arts in Recovery (AIR), the Leaving Homelessness Intervention Research Project (LHIRP), and Interdisciplinary Research on Environmental Design (IRED)] for the lessons they offer social work education. They pay particular attention to the art exhibit and its catalog as products that educate the public on various social issues, as well as the exhibit visitation experience that parallels key components of traditional group work and community development. Implications for social work include teaching interdisciplinary collaboration, integrating the arts into social work methods, emphasizing the importance of participatory action research, and creating settings that promote community engagement. The authors then draw implications for how the arts and humanities can influence or otherwise shape the paradigm of social work education and instruction in the areas of policy, human behavior, practice methods, and research.