Building Bridges with Indigenous Communities through Social Work Education

During a trip north to the Inuit territory of Nunavik in 2008 to promote social work education to a secondary school, students were asked what they thought of when they heard the words ‘social work’. The first response was ‘run for your life!’ What lies behind this response? Why is social work and, subsequently, social work education, reviled in Indigenous communities in Canada? And how might we support the development and implementation of culturally relevant social work practice with Indigenous Peoples? This chapter seeks to address this question by exploring ways in which schools of social work can facilitate relationship building with Indigenous communities in an educational context.