The Field Education team works with each student to ensure that they find an agency that aligns with their career goals. Students fill out an online application that asks about their interests, strengths, experiences, family responsibilities, and access to a car—a wide range of questions that allow the team to begin to consider matches. Then they’ll upload their resume so the team can share it with prospective supervisors. The team facilitates connections with the agencies so students don’t need to find practicum experiences on their own. Students may suggest an agency where they would like to work, and the team will contact the organization to ensure that it’s ready and willing to train students. 

All students are assigned to work with an assistant director on the Field Education team. All assistant directors have received MSW degrees themselves and have years of experience in the social work field. They are also well-connected with many agency partners and have a great range of knowledge about available learning opportunities. Before classes have even started, our assistant directors have substantive conversations with students to get to know them and their interests. This begins the discernment process, as we move to identify a prospective agency that fits their career goals and aspirations. Students will interview with the potential organization, and if there is a mutual match, the placement is confirmed typically a semester ahead of the start of the practicum itself.

The written assignments for the Field Education courses center on the competencies for social work education. Students are attentive to professionalism, equity, justice, and inclusion, policy, and research, to name only a few. They then use the assignments to illustrate how they have experienced those competencies in the practicum. Self-reflection is also a hallmark of the professional, and we have designed practicum reflection assignments that help students explore their reactions and responses to the conditions they see and are working to address. The concept of “use of self” is integral to our practice—we must be conscious and aware of who we are, what we bring to the work, and how to use ourselves to further the changes with which we are engaged. We are also very intentional about using a trauma-informed lens in Field Education, sharing the importance of self-care as we move through the learning, which can be both inspiring and emotionally challenging.

Many of the assignments, especially those in the practice courses,  derive directly from the practicum experience. Students may analyze the org chart at their agency,  review their assessment form,  formulate a best care plan for a client, or interview an agency leader. The course lectures and readings allow students to reflect on interaction from their placement, to deepen their understanding of social conditions or policy implications. It is a constant back and forth between the practicum and class—each provides grounding and curiosity for the other. Practicum learning is the central tenet of social work education—its signature pedagogy. This interplay between classroom learning and experiential application builds a solid foundation to ground our students as they move out into the world as professional Masters level social worker practitioners.