All Practice Digest
In both the classroom and in field education, the technological revolution has impacted social work education. While electronic resources have expanded opportunities for students, they have also created new challenges for faculty and field instructors with respect to developing effective and efficient ways of conducting the basic tasks of field education. This article reports on the efforts of the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Arlington to compare traditional face-to face (F2F) to nontraditional electronic-based field liaison contacts.
Read more »
Historically, social workers and other helping professionals, such as visiting nurses, have intervened on behalf of individuals, families, and communities. Often, these interventions take place in a client’s home. Wasik and Bryant describe home visiting as “the process by which a professional or paraprofessional provides help to a family in their own home. This help focuses on social, emotional, cognitive, educational, and/or health needs & often takes place over an extended period of time” (2001, p. 1). Traditionally, home visits focused on three overarching areas: poverty, infant and child care, and illness (Wasik & Bryant, 2001, p. 1). In the last decade, home visiting has also become a central feature of services such as home-based behavioral health and family wrap-around programs. Home visitors seek to provide child care information, health care, knowledge of community resources, and emotional support. Many social work internships include home visits, but interns are often confused and worried about what this means. Read more »
Work with unaccompanied homeless youth is an increasing focus of social work practice. It is estimated that there are between 204,000 and 406,000 unaccompanied homeless youth (ages 12 to 24) in the United States (Abel, 2010; Homeless Research Institute, 2012). These youth have high rates of substance abuse, suicide (Barczyk & Thompson, 2008), and trauma, both in their homes of origin (Kurtz, Kurtz, & Jarvis, 1991; Rew, 2001; Slesnick, Kang, & Aukward, 2008), and on the streets (Fisher, Florsheim, & Sheetz, 2005). With the recent economic recession, their numbers have increased and their needs have become more urgent than ever (Kidd & Scrimenti, 2004; Levenson, 2011). Work with this population is extremely challenging due to the risks of life on the streets, the transiency and unpredictability of being homeless, and the dangerous behaviors in which youth engage. What do social work interns need as they are trained to work with unaccompanied homeless youth? A recent qualitative study of workers serving homeless youth (Mirick & Dean, 2010) indicates several areas where field educators can support interns in work with these clients.
Read more »
The professional socialization of social workers involves the process of acquiring knowledge and skills, values, attitudes, and professional identity (Miller, 2010). As a field liaison for graduate social work students, one of my responsibilities was to link field placement experiences with classroom work. I accomplished this with seminars, site visits, and review of written agreements, reflections, and evaluations. Barretti (2004) notes that virtually everything faculty and field instructors do and say profoundly influences their students. Professional competencies that lead to professional socialization involve a process where students begin to utilize professional language in their construction of events, and to implement actions to address ethical issues and dilemmas (Dolgoff, Lowenberg, & Harrington, 2009; Holosko & Skinner, 2009; Horner & Kelly, 2007; Manning, 1997). In this paper, I describe an ethical dilemma with respect to research at a field placement. I then analyze the dilemma, and finally discuss how an intern can work toward promoting client self-determination and social justice with respect to a complex dilemma.
Read more »