Public policy development and professional development: the experience of social work in the Unidad de Restitución de Tierras in Colombia

Abstract

In Social work training, there are different ways of understanding academic practice. Some authors define it as the space where the student learns to "be a Social worker". In the Social work practice in the Land Restitution Unit, the students who were in the secondary occupation component not only came close to what professional performance is, but were witnesses to how a public policy is built. This experience was systematized in 2022 and includes the experiences of students, tutors, and teachers between 2013 and 2020. As a methodological option, it was developed from the five-step proposal of Jara-Holliday (2018). Among the findings, we highlight that in making the issue of second occupants a component of policy, students made concrete contributions to the development of characterization tools, in the processes of training aimed at officials, and in the analysis of complex cases. They also consolidated their training process by being able to read and connect the macro and micro contexts of land dispossession, by facing the dilemmas and tensions that reality poses to the action of the State, and by seeing the practice and research connection materialized. Finally, the reflections on what has been lived have allowed us to see that dissatisfaction, frustration, and uncertainty are primary components of social workers’ duties.