Component Of Social Work Education Research Articles

What motivates social workers to become field instructors: Perspectives from Canada

The field education component of social work education is critical to the overall development of social work students’ readiness for practice. Field instructors assume great responsibility for the emotional, theoretical, administrative, and clinical development of students who enter field education at either the undergraduate or graduate levels of their social work education. This role is generally subsumed on a voluntary basis concurrent with their occupational responsibilities. The purpose of this study was to explore the factors that motivate social workers to take on the field instructor role. Canadian Field Instructors completed an online survey which included a qualitative question to elicit their perspectives on their motivation for becoming a field instructor. Responses (N=58) were grouped into four themes: mentor social work students, give back to the profession, memories of field instruction, and personal and organizational accountability. Implications for field education and social work education are offered.

Innovative fieldwork education in Africa

My remarks focus essentially on the theme of social work education in Africa. I observe that social work education per se has two prongs – classroom instruction and field practicum. I then indicate that the paper is interested in the practicum component of social work education. It notes that in the context of Africa, there has been a clarion call for relevance in social work on the continent. To this end, terms like Ubuntu and indigenisation, have emerged in the context of the discourse on the quest for relevance of social work on the continent - concepts which are consistent with a developmental social work model. My argument is in order to successfully promote the development approach in social work, change has to begin in the education component. The challenge though is that some institutions of education and training in social work, have purported to be promoting the developmental social work education approach, when in fact, the practicum component of their education and training programmes is not consistent with the developmental approach. Apparently, some social work educators are not very clear in terms of what the developmental approach entails, while others are curtailed by institution culture and policies. I then argue that in order to produce a cadre who is well versed in the developmental social work approach, the fieldwork practicum component has to be consistent with the key tenets of the developmental approach. Six models of the developmental social work approach to fieldwork placements are presented as examples of the kind of field placements that would go with the developmental approach. Advantages of the developmental type of placements are briefly explored. HOW TO REFERENCE USING ASWDNET STYLE Mupedziswa R. (2024). Africa Day Indaba 2022 – Innovative Fieldwork Education in Africa. presentation made during Africa Day Indaba 2022. African Journal of Social Work, 14(3), 126-132. https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ajsw.v14i3.3 Visit journal website: https://ajsw.africasocialwork.net

Anti-Racist Social Work Education: “Ready or Not, Here I Come, You Can’t Hide...”

ABSTRACT The 2022 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) from the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) definitively identifies anti-racism as a necessary component of social work education. This change supports an effort to ensure that coming generations of social workers are more than culturally competent, but rather actively anti-racist in their practice across the micro, mezzo, and macro spectrum. While some social work programs have already embraced anti-racist education, many still have significant work to do. The fact remains that every accredited school will be required to make this shift to stay in compliance with CSWE accreditation once the newly ratified EPAS comes into effect. Although changes are expected of social work schools/programs, guidance on how to make such changes has been scarce. This paper provides an overview of what is meant by anti-racist social work education and why it is important, inclusive of emphasizing the difference between rhetoric and praxis. Based on a narrative review of the literature related to social work schools/programs in the U.S. and Canada that began incorporating anti-racism prior to EPAS 2022, suggestions for encouraging strategies within both the implicit and explicit curricula that align with anti-racist social work education are offered.

COVID-19 has highlighted the role of a public health perspective in social work education

ABSTRACT With the exception of students in dual MSW-MPH degree programs, few social work students are exposed to public health in the classroom setting. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of training social workers in health promotion, prevention, and addressing health disparities at the population-level. This article describes the field of public health social work, the foundational principles of public health and the benefits of including public health in a social work curriculum. Specific examples of content are presented related to COVID-19 vaccine access and hesitancy to illustrate this interdisciplinary approach. The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that public health is an integral component of social work education.

Field Instruction with Integration and Implementation of Indigenous Social Work Education

The purpose of field work is ... to clarify technical instruction. Just as the botanist goes into the fields to study plants and flowers to supplement his text book knowledge, and just as the geologist turns from a study of books to the study of rocks, so the social worker goes from the classroom to the appropriate field work activity, using the field work as a means of clarifying and adding point to the classroom instruction (Manshardt, 1985, p. 3).Field instruction, a crucial component of social work education, is recognised as an educational process to facilitate integrative and experiential learning. Though the pattern and organisation of social work practicum have some universality, the micro-based practice model adopted in the Indian context has led to inappropriately designed field education programmes producing students unsuited to meet the developmental need of the Indian society. Efforts made to restructure field instruction to prepare students for macro-based practice roles have been too slow to find their way into the educational programme of most of the schools of social work in India. Major problems such as scarcity of field placements, non-availability of qualified agency-based field instructors, inadequate linkage between classroom teaching and field realities, and poor faculty position still prevail. Crucial areas for change in field instruction are examined and alternative strategies are suggested in the light of the emerging socioeconomic concerns of the country and recent trends in the profession.

A Program for Valuing Mental Health Lived Experience in Social Work Education

ABSTRACT Participation and involvement of service users, carers, and families into the design, delivery, evaluation, and development of mental health policy and services is now a standard expectation. As social workers are employed in mental health settings, it is vital that graduates understand and ethically engage with mental health consumers, survivors, ex-patients, and family (CSX + F) in a meaningful and authentic manner. We argue this extends to fostering critical understandings of dominant discourses about distress, trauma, diagnosis, and intervention as a routine component of social work education. The Valuing Lived Experience Program (VLEP) described in this article within the Curtin University School of Allied Health aims to meaningfully embed the voices of people with lived experience of mental distress, trauma, and service use into the education of tertiary students and academics. Lived experience education in social work is vitally important and requires appropriate resourcing, clear purpose and principles, and attention to the democratisation of knowledge in order to achieve epistemic justice. In this article, the authors describe and contextualise the VLEP as a contemporary example of how lived experience in social work education can occur and be developed. IMPLICATIONS Meaningful participation of people with mental health lived experience is important to social work education. Lived experience education needs to be underpinned by clear ethical and theoretical principles for teaching and learning. Programs that rigorously engage with lived experience in mental health education can make a positive contribution to critical understandings of mental distress.

Key Competencies in Social Work through Field Placement

Field placement is considered a core component of social work education. However, it requires regular personal contacts with individuals, groups and communities. These contacts have been limited in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. A central question is how to organize field placement during the lockdown to develop key competencies in social work. To answer this question, we employ the students’ reports, competency-based self-evaluation tools, students’ assessment of the field placement (led by the University’s education quality assurance centre) and assessment of students’ performance by the field placement supervisors and university instructors. This paper presents the achievements and challenges of teaching and mastering key competencies in social work at the School of Social Work of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy from different perspectives: students, placement agencies and the University itself. While almost all competencies have been taught and learned, those related to individual casework were the most difficult to achieve. The flexibility of the social work profession is also discussed in this paper. Future social workers should be flexible and meet the people's needs in different contexts, including lockdown. The findings have implications for students, schools of social work and field placement agencies.

Implementation of Practice-Based Research in Social Work Education

Research is an integral component of social work education, yet social work students often experience considerable fear and anxiety when faced with the prospect of engaging in research and research-related activities. Student reluctance towards research can cause significant challenges for social work educators. Literature suggests that certain pedagogical practices can increase engagement and improve student learning outcomes, such as integrating experiential practice components and creating practical opportunities for students to apply their classroom knowledge to real life settings. This paper describes the development and implementation of practice-based research curricula and practica in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary to enhance student experiential learning.

“It’s a whole orchestra”: what are the instrumental elements in quality field education?

ABSTRACTField education is widely upheld as an essential component of social work education; however, definitions of ‘quality’ field education are contested. Increasing competition for placements in Aotearoa New Zealand has placed considerable pressure on tertiary providers and organizations to provide placements considered to be ‘of quality’. Current conversations across the social work sector are emphasizing the importance of further examination of placement quality. While the development of national field education guidelines for field educators has assisted in clarifying their particular contribution to successful placements, equivalent guidelines for other stakeholders do not currently exist.This timely study generated qualitative data through interviews with agency managers, academic staff and students. The findings present their perspectives on elements that contribute to ‘quality’ field education. Overall, the participants agreed ‘quality’ field education is underpinned by a focus on student learning alongside a desire from the organization and the field educator to support a student placement. Student readiness and suitability, a match between the student and the placement, adequate preparation and understanding of the responsibilities of each stakeholder role were noted. The development of national guidelines on the responsibilities, skills and knowledge of students, organizations and academic staff engaged in field education is recommended.

Reflective practice and learning from mistakes in social work student placement

ABSTRACTStudent placement is a fundamental component of social work education and an important space where to build critically self-reflective practitioners. Students learn from their reflection on their experience and their mistakes are a powerful opportunity to go behind the surface of events and understand the essence of the profession. This article will present some results from the analysis carried out on the reflective writing of a group of social work students who describe and reflect on the most significant mistakes they made in their field practice using a reflective framework developed for errors and failures. The main results of this experience are illustrated with special focus on the impact and on the emotions, the relationships with service users and the assessment of the cases. Students are often so concentrated on looking at their responsibility that they become almost blind to the systems and interactions that contribute to the negative outcomes of their actions. Social work education programs should emphasize the importance of structured reflective habits and promote the culture of responsibility instead of the ‘blame culture’, that is probably the strongest obstacle to learning from mistakes and preventing their repetition in the future.

What makes a good placement? Findings of a social work student-to-student research study

ABSTRACTSocial work fieldwork placements are recognised as a key component of social work education. This article analyses the experiences of students who have completed one social work placement and examines what they felt was most effective in aiding their learning. The innovative methodology used for the research enabled first year students to design an on-line survey which they administered to their second year student colleagues. The first year students gained experience in designing and administering a piece of research, but also gained a greater understanding of what previous students have found assisted their learning on placement. This cross-sectional research surveyed accessed the 2014/15 cohort of year 1 and year 2 Masters in Social Work (MSW) students. Students reported how prepared they felt for placement and also who or what facilitated their learning on placement. Students’ perception of the volume of learning on placement was strongly correlated with satisfaction. It is argued that being able to clearly identify types of interaction that enhance students’ learning, leads to more positive outcomes for all involved in the placement experience.

Using Movies to Change Homophobic Attitudes of Social Work Students

Objectives: This article examines homophobic attitude changes among undergraduate social work students in two major universities located in Ankara, Turkey. Method: The research was conducted in Ankara for 10 weeks with 54 volunteer students from Ankara University and Hacettepe University. During one term, nine movies were screened, a get-acquainted meeting was held, three information booklets were distributed, and the Homosexuality Attitudes Scale (HAS) was given at the beginning and end of the term. Results: The mean HAS score at the pretest was 166.28 ( SD = 35.33), and the mean posttest score was 146.93 ( SD = 41.09). A paired samples t-test found this reduction to be statistically significant at p < .05 level, with a Cohen’s d effect size of .52, r = .25. Conclusions: These results are consistent with the hypothesis that viewing gay-friend mainstream movies can contribute to a reduction in prejudice again homosexuals. Viewing such movies may be an important component of social work education aimed at enhancing favorable views toward diverse sexual orientations and promoting social workers’ ability to effectively engage with gays and lesbians in practice.

Back to the future and back again: Reflections on a student unit

Fieldwork placements are a critical component of social work education. During the 1980s student units were a common model for placements across the statutory social work sector in New Zealand. While these units were replaced in the 1990s and 2000s with a more individualistic approach to social work supervision and placement education, the Site Manager of Child Youth and Family Palmerston North initiated the development of a new unit in 2006. A full-time fieldwork educator was employed to work with social work students on placement. Several benefits of the unit were apparent; however, due to reprioritisation within Child Youth and Family, it was disestablished in 2009. This article traces the establishment and the demise of this student unit and offers comment on the perceived effectiveness of the unit for all of the key stakeholders, that is, the students, Massey University and Child Youth and Family.

Issues and challenges of social work practicum at developing countries in comparable with developed countries

This article focuses on the nature of field practicum at developing countries particularly in Egypt and Arabic countries in comparable with developed countries. The goal of this article is to highlight the challenges and problems that passively affected the quality of field practicum in developing countries, and suggest some recommendations in attempting to develop this critical component of social work education. The main element of this article are theoretical framework of field practicum, Comparison between social work practicum in developed and developing countries.

Social Work Students ‘Juggling’ Field Placement

Field education is widely acknowledged as a central component of social work education. However, it requires a substantial commitment of time and energy from students which can present challenges to students who have multiple responsibilities. Based on a literature review conducted in preparation for doctoral research into social work student experience of juggling multiple roles and responsibilities with field placement, this article summarises what is known about the challenges they face and what helps them to complete placement. The findings have implications for students, schools of social work and field placement agencies. Further research should provide guidance for professional social work bodies, schools of social work, field educators and students.

A UNIVERSITY-COMMUNITY OUTREACH INITIATIVE: AN INNOVATIVE APPROACH TO SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE EDUCATION

Practice education has always been a core component of social work education and provides social work students with opportunities to “learn to practice social work by delivering social work services in agency and community settings” (Bogo, 2006). The purpose of practice education is broadly to enable students to learn to integrate theory and practice, and to develop the knowledge, skills and values necessary for professional practice. One of the issues in transferring such theory into practice is “how to overcome the assumed ‘abstract’ nature of theory in relation to the assumed ‘real’ nature of practice” (Evans, Guile, Harris & Allan, 2010:245), and it is therefore essential to provide students with opportunities to engage in social work processes in the real world. Historically social work agencies acted as the universities’ partners in the practice education of social work students – they provided placement sites and access to social work practice and their supervisors guided and mentored social work students.

Addressing professional suitability in social work education

Limited research exists pertaining to field education coordinators’ leadership and educational practice in general, or with respect to the specific topic of gatekeeping in social work education. This article presents the results of a Canadian study that investigates the experience and approach of field education coordinators in addressing student professional suitability concerns. This exploratory study consists of a focus group conducted with field education coordinators from across Canada, and an extensive web-based survey questionnaire administered to all current, and some former social work field education coordinators in Canada. In brief, the results of this study reinforce the perception found in social work literature that gatekeeping predominantly falls to the field component of social work education. Findings of the study provide insight into the location of field education within academia; and highlights the important leadership role undertaken by field education coordinators in supporting students, faculty liaisons, field educators, and university administration in addressing concerns related to student professional suitability. Implications for social work education are discussed.

Planning for learning and learning about planning in social work fieldwork

Fieldwork education is a crucial component of social work education. Many social work students regard their placement experiences as the most profound learning experiences of their studies. The students undertake their field placements in a diverse range of organisational contexts, and in so doing perform a myriad of tasks, adopt a variety of roles, implement a range of practices, and engage with numerous people. Needless to say, social work students have a rich set of learning opportunities within such diversity. An important part of the fieldwork process is the development of learning plans; these plans guide and direct the students’ roles, tasks and learning, and are often an important framework by which assessment of competency and learning takes place. However, learning plans presuppose a logical and conceptual clarity, which needs to be learned if they are to be functional and effective documents. This then poses many challenges in relation to how students might develop a learning plan for fieldwork. This paper explores some of the problems, and offers practical guidance, for students and fieldwork educators to develop rational learning plans in diverse and complex contexts.

Narrative Practice and Social Work Education: Using a Narrative Approach in Social Work Practice Education to Develop Struggling Social Work Students

Placement learning opportunities (PLO) are a crucial component of social work education yet little seems to be known of how practice educators use their knowledge and skills to develop students specifically. This leaves practice educators with a gap in knowledge of how to provide the right learning opportunities to the students they support, which is even more heightened when the student is struggling in their PLO. This paper seeks to fill this gap in social work practice education to show how a narrative approach was used with a struggling social work student in a UK statutory children and families placement. It seeks to show how narrative practice can be considered an effective method of developing a positive working relationship and influencing change within students, while being an effective way of teaching about social work in general.

Spirituality: What We Can Teach and How We Can Teach It

In the new millennium, spirituality has been accepted as an integral part of social work practice, enabling a holistic and strength‐based approach to individuals, groups, and communities. This acceptance has been encouraged by the current interest in both religious and spiritual issues. The rationale for such inclusion is grounded in a review of the historical relationship between spirituality and social work, in the ethical mandates that underlie both the NASW Code of Ethics and the Standards for Cultural Competence in Social Work, and in the evolving definitions of social work areas of practice as biopsychosociocultural‐spiritual. Thus, it must be viewed as an essential component of social work education. Because of the nature of spirituality and spiritual experiences and the potential for wide divergence in views, definitions, experiences, and understanding, spirituality is especially challenging to teach. Research indicates that students also identify spirituality as an essential component of social work practice and that they often feel ill prepared and equipped to address spiritual issues in practice after completing their social work education. Models, resources, and literature in this field have been developed by many researchers, particularly as they relate to special populations or fields within social work; yet the challenges persist. Spirituality may be taught as a discrete course, generally as an elective, and suggestions for material to be included in such a course are offered in the areas of knowledge acquisition, skill development, and self‐awareness. However, it is recognized that material on spirituality should be infused throughout the social work curriculum, primarily in core courses such as practice, diversity, human behavior in the social environment, research, policy, and ethics, and specific suggestions are offered to encourage such inclusion. To increase students' knowledge of the varieties of spiritual experiences of potential clients, a small random sample of the general population was interviewed regarding spiritual beliefs and experiences. Interviewees were asked to define spirituality, to share their experiences, and to suggest ways in which meaningful dialogue about spirituality might be encouraged in social work practice.