List of Podcasts for Social Work

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Jan 30, 2019 | 3 comments

Editor’s Note: Melanie Sage is an assistant professor of social work in the School of Social Work at the University at Buffalo. In this blog post, she gives an overview of podcasting in social work and shares her crowdsourced list of social work podcasts.

Once upon a time in not-so-long-ago history, broadcast media was limited to the hands of radio professionals with fancy recording devices. Regular people on tight budgets have long tried to harness the power of audio recording and broadcasting, from ham operators to low-fi analog reel or tape recorders. Suddenly, in the last decade, affordable high-quality recording devices fit in the palms of our hands, along with the means to broadcast our voices internationally at very little cost.

Early social work podcast pioneer greats include Jonathan Singer, who launched the Social Work Podcast in 2007 and has over 125 episodes, and inSocialWork, which launched in 2008 at the University at Buffalo School of Social Work, and now has over 250 episodes. You can listen to either of them in your favorite podcast streamer, such as Apple’s iTunes Podcast Streamer or Spotify, for over 300 hours of learning from experts in our field. You can listen during your commute, at the gym, while doing chores, or when you’re getting ready in the morning. They make it so easy to fit lifelong learning into your day. Learn more about how to listen to podcasts by watching this short video.

So do we need more social work podcasts? Absolutely! As of this writing, the crowdsourced spreadsheet presented below offers over 30 different podcasts hosted by social workers, and dozens more are listed (in the second tab) that focus on issues important to social workers.  The magic of podcasts is that they allow us to hear perspectives from different viewpoints, which sparks our own learning and reflection. Because we celebrate diverse perspectives in social work, each new podcast that lands on the field offers new ways of seeing our work, brings in new networks of guests, and focuses on unique pieces of the social work universe.  Private practice social work can be lonely, but several great clinical practice podcasts make a great supplement to your local professional network. And I’m especially pleased to see the growth of podcasts that focus on social justice issues that are hosted by social workers in community practice settings from diverse geographic and practice areas.

Although the tools have become more accessible, producing podcast episodes and managing a podcast is still a lot of work.  Learning the technology, keeping it interesting, recording, editing, uploading, hosting, and managing a subscription all take time. And it’s a big responsibility to present high-quality content that represents you and our profession well. Some of the podcasts in this database will continue, some will fade away, and others will pop up. The beauty of connected learning is that we can share our discoveries with each other.  This crowdsourced document can be edited by anyone by clicking on this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-sWCLA_pmvcQtizjtP3VO9jNd531vHVayki11jRplh8/htmlview or by clicking on the image below.

Please update the list if you know of a podcast that is hosted by a social worker and does not appear in this spreadsheet.

Want to start your own podcast?  Some of these resources will help you out. If you’ve got something to share but the work seems overwhelming, consider reaching out to one of the podcast hosts on this list and offering to join them as a special guest. Want to talk about podcasting for social workers on Twitter?  Use hashtag #swpodcasts to join the conversation.

• Lifehacker: How to start your own podcast. https://lifehacker.com/how-to-start-your-own-podcast-1709798447
• Podcast Insights: 2019 Guide. https://www.podcastinsights.com/start-a-podcast/
• How to Start a Podcast. https://www.thepodcasthost.com/planning/how-to-start-a-podcast/

How to cite this blog post:
Sage, M. (2019, January 30). List of Podcasts for Social Work [Blog Post]. Retrieved from:
https://laureliversonhitchcock.org/2019/01/30/podcasts4socialwork/.