In order to qualify as a placement site, agencies must have a demonstrated social work program with standards and philosophy acceptable to the school, the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), and the professional community. The setting must adhere to the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics and provide needed services to the community. The agency must be committed to training social work students and willing to follow school expectations delineated in the Field Education Manual.
It is expected that agency staff will offer an orientation to the setting, its services, and its policies for students. The agency should provide a spectrum of learning experiences with attention to the educational value for the particular intern along with agency service needs. Case assignments should facilitate student development of knowledge and practice skill. The field instructor will complete two written and one verbal evaluation of student performance during the academic year and will mail the evaluations to SSW by the dates scheduled by the school.
Agency staff are expected to teach direct (micro) service to individual clients, couples, families and groups, and to intervene on their behalf with larger institutions and organizations. Depending on setting and client needs, students are expected to learn several of the following: advocacy, outreach, negotiating and coordinating services, small-program planning, and involvement in policy development. The agency and field instructor are expected to provide an adequate and varied caseload for the three days per week of field placement.
In making a commitment to participate in the training of M.S.W. students, administrators are expected to adjust the workload of field instructors to allow adequate time for student teaching and collaboration with the school's field liaison as well as other occasional meetings. A minimum of two hours a week is required for formal supervisory conferences with each student, or one and a half hours plus secondary or group supervision. In addition, time must be provided for reading process recordings and other reports, planning informal conferences, and consulting with school representatives. If the field instructor is new to student supervision, the agency should be willing to allow him/her to attend SSW's Supervision Seminars.
Each year, field agencies complete the Field Education Fact Sheet to update SSW and to describe the learning opportunities for the coming academic year. Since each placement is assigned an SSW field faculty member, this liaison plays a key role in the continued assessment of the quality of the setting as a training site.
For more information about the SSW Field Education Program, please email Director Associate Professor Suzanne Sankar, or call 617-521-3946.
Downloads
- Field Education Manual
- Year I Evaluation Form
- Year II Evaluation Form
- Year I Learning Plan
- Year II Learning Plan
- Clinical Practice Syllabus
- Advanced Clinical Practice Syllabus
