Exploring Social Work Students’ Attitudes and Experiences at a Free Clinic

This paper addresses the experiences of social work students who offered social work services to clients at a clinic offering free medical care to those who are indigent and lack health insurance in a community in the United States. The study found that students’ attitudes toward poverty were challenged from the micro to the macro level.  Utilizing the structural explanation of poverty, structural social work and Freire’s pedagogy of oppression, the study explored how students’ attitudes toward poverty were affected as they provided services to clients who are hovering at or below poverty level.