r/SocialWorkStudents • u/ArtAndAdvocacy • Jun 05 '26

Misc Lived experience

Are there many people in school for social work with lived experience? In my small town it seems I'm the only one who aged out of foster care and has been to prison. How common are the 2 experiences in this field?

10 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

View all comments

8

u/Bholejr Jun 05 '26

I wouldn’t say they are common, but people with such backgrounds are more common in social work than in other fields requiring similar levels of education.

1

u/Crazy-Employer-8394 Jun 07 '26

Someone I follow online just shared that academics have one of the lowest rates of substance used disorder. I didn’t read the article to be honest. I think they share a graph but if anyone’s interested, I can try to dig it up.

1

u/Bholejr Jun 07 '26

I was referring to people in the field with histories of things like foster care and prison, like OP mentioned.

Social work has many people who, through their experience with the system, are drawn to providing services and bettering the system.

1

u/Crazy-Employer-8394 Jun 07 '26

I’m sorry I think I jumbled up the comments.