Fall 2024 Issue

Education: Supporting Field Instructors
By Laura Beaver, LMSW
Social Work Today
Vol. 24 No. 4 P. 30

A simple adjustment to how learning agreements are written can enhance the effectiveness of field education.

Social work programs stand out from other degree programs due to the pivotal role of field education. Regarded as the “signature pedagogy” of social work, it plays a crucial role in equipping students with practical skills in the field. Within field education, social work schools entrust field instructors with the responsibility of guiding students, providing feedback, and overseeing their skill development at various sites.

According to the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), “Field education is designed to integrate the theoretical and conceptual contributions of the explicit curriculum in the field setting. It is the basic precept of social work education that the two interrelated components of curriculum—classroom and field—are of equal importance [within the curriculum].”1 Despite this significant role of field education, field instructors often navigate the complex challenge of translating classroom teaching and accreditation competencies into real-world, applicable social work skills without adequate support.

Hosting students is a responsibility that significantly influences the students’ experiences in their BSW or MSW programs and sets the tone for their future careers. Field instructors are often the only source of feedback on students’ use of knowledge, values, and skills in a social work setting. Despite this, there’s a notable lack of attention to the needs of field instructors.

Multiple factors contribute to a student’s learning success in field education. They need healthy and welcoming organizational environments, collaborative relationships with field instructors, the ability to observe and debrief their experiences, and opportunities to practice with clients.2 Field instructors are often expected to understand and integrate social work curricula with little to no contact from the universities their students attend. Field instruction is often viewed as an act of service back to the profession, which often disregards the need for proper training and support in this volunteer role.

The increasing number of social work programs and the rise in enrollment have led to less availability of field instructors and higher competition between field sites. Additionally, there’s a higher demand for faculty members to contribute to university work through research and administrative tasks that often leads to “minimal or no engagement” with field sites.2 Arguably, one of the most influential people in a student’s experience and one of the most crucial roles in evaluating students’ progress and learning is often not assisted by the university in their pivotal role.

One of the first places a field instructor might feel lost is the learning contract or learning agreement. Accredited social work programs are required to demonstrate that students are mastering competencies and accompanying skills through implicit and explicit curricula, including practicum experiences. The CSWE accreditation requirements outline that students get the opportunity to practice all nine competencies at all levels of practice (micro, mezzo, and macro) through their field experience. The main method of ensuring this happens is the learning agreement. Most schools adopt the language from CSWE competencies to assess students’ progress and learning in their field experience. However, a strong misalignment exists between this academic language and the practical skills employed by students in the real world.

Many students are not aware of the nine competencies outlined by CSWE. Students themselves may not be familiar with this language and its meaning. In practice, social workers often are not practicing through a lens of social work learning competencies. Rather, they are task-oriented and focused on their clients receiving the necessary help to make changes in their lives. There’s a significant gap between what is practically done in the field and the academic language used in universities’ evaluation tools. This discrepancy leaves field instructors unsure if students’ skills align with CSWE competencies, leading to confusion in evaluation. The most common solution is the addition of tasks to a learning agreement in order to meet the learning competency requirements. These tasks may not be conducive to the students’ workload or client-focused work, however.

For instance, CSWE encourages students to engage in policy practice. However, the translation of this into practical tasks, such as writing policy letters, may detract from direct client engagement or applicable examples of how the social worker engages in policy practice in that particular setting. Universities must support field instructors in understanding how existing tasks align with competencies so students are able to see how the social worker’s job covers each of the nine competencies rather than what needs to be added to fit the competencies outside of the context of what the social worker is already doing. For example, perhaps a student could be involved in staying updated on licensing regulations, understanding changing laws related to telehealth and HIPAA, or learning about how zoning changes will influence where the agency can open its newest shelter.

Often, field instructors create new tasks, potentially burdening students and themselves with additional work and deviating from client-focused work to meet learning goals. This approach can contribute to disillusionment and frustration among students, risking burnout before they embark on their professional journeys. It also gives unnecessary amounts of work to field instructors, which might make them less likely to host students in the future.

A proposed solution is to reverse engineer the learning agreement. Instead of creating tasks to fit each competency, students and field instructors should start by listing everything the field instructors already do in their roles at the agencies. This list can then be used to identify tasks that fulfill the learning contract requirements. Field instructors may discover that much of their existing work already meets the criteria, and any gaps can be addressed by collaborating with others in the agencies or, as a last resort, by creating new tasks. Additionally, the creation of the learning agreement is an optimal point at which universities can come in and support field instructors. Universities can guide field instructors in this process and empower them to create learning agreements that fulfill requirements and do not add additional, unnecessary work.

Students view field instructors as guides, collaborators, coaches, and mentors who help them on their professional journeys. Universities must prioritize supporting field instructors in their vital roles, as this support will ultimately benefit the students. A simple adjustment to how learning agreements are written can enhance the effectiveness of field education, serving students, field instructors, and clients while upholding the document’s integrity and purpose.

When field instructors are supported by universities in simple ways like this, they feel more capable of leading students. Well-supported field instructors can guide and empower students to be excellent social workers, thus upholding the integrity and future of the profession. One cannot overstate how important it is to invest in those leading students in their field experiences. The trickle-down impact of that investment will benefit the university, student, field instructor, and, ultimately, the entire field of social work exponentially.

— Laura Beaver, LMSW, has more than 16 years of experience in BSW and MSW programs. She’s been an adjunct, faculty member, BSW program director, and field director in various programs. She now works in private practice and provides consultation services to social work programs to enhance their curriculum, streamline field education, and invest in the future of the field of social work by providing unmatched support and service to field instructors.

References
1. Council on Social Work Education. Educational policy and accreditation standards. https://www.cswe.org/getmedia/bb5d8afe-7680-42dc-a332-a6e6103f4998/2022-EPAS.pdf. Published 2022.

2. Bogo M. Field education for clinical social work practice: best practices and contemporary challenges. Clin Soc Work J. 2015;43:317-324.