As we publish Field Educator for fall 2023, I am struck by how deeply the context for social work education is shaped by an urgent and growing concern about the impact of long-standing societal inequalities on individuals, families, and communities. Increasingly, social work educators are grappling with how to meaningfully educate current and future social work students to fully embrace a commitment to dismantling systems of oppression at the micro and macro levels. Indeed, the CSWE 2022 EPAS is a call to action for all educators to examine and reinvigorate their curriculum to more genuinely teach the skills, knowledge, and values associated with antiracist social work practice. Specifically, Competency 3: Engage Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ADEI) in practice, embodies this crucial learning goal. Field education is particularly challenged with effectively teaching Competency 3 because field learning resides not in the classroom but in widely varied agency settings. Within these settings are community social workers who have differing levels of exposure to and experience with ADEI practices, yet who are responsible for creating the learning activities and supervising a student’s work. This model of learning creates a unique set of responsibilities for field education faculty. How do we, as field educators, ensure that a field instructor is prepared to teach the skills needed to practice within an antiracist framework?
The fall issue of Field Educator has two offerings that address this question. Our Field Talks podcast features an interview with the Simmons University SSW field education director, Eugenia Knight, MSW. The interview includes a discussion about the challenges of incorporating training for field instructors on the topic of antiracist supervision strategies. Also, the Practice Digest section includes a thoughtful report and reflection on one university’s deep dive into defining and teaching an antiracist skill set to their agency-based instructors. There is a lot to learn from this school’s creativity and careful planning!
We hope you find the fall issue of Field Educator stimulating and informative. As always, we encourage you to contact us with your ideas and feedback.