Social work is a practice-based career. Whereas studying the career’s values, requirements and approaches are an necessary part of training for college kids on this discipline, having the ability to apply the abilities which are taught within the classroom is vital to being an efficient social employee. To reveal utility, about 60% of a scholar’s academic expertise in a Grasp of Social Work (MSW) program is spent within the discipline working straight with shoppers, organizations and communities.
“ placement web site is one that provides a sturdy coaching expertise,” says Ruth Ann Supranovich, director of discipline training on the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. “They get to look at social staff doing the work and observe it in a secure setting with robust supervisory help. The main target is to see the scholar as a possible worker, and a future member of the skilled workforce.”
When the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck College of Social Work launched an online MSW program a decade in the past, on-line training seemed very totally different and carried a status of being static. However reflecting on the 10-year anniversary of the MSW@USC, the varsity’s pioneering efforts on this house have proven that college students throughout the nation might get an equally strong, participating and dynamic studying expertise in a digital setting that didn’t sacrifice the signature pedagogy of social work — the sphere placement.
Introducing the Digital Subject Practicum
A conventional MSW program that college students tackle campus is 4 semesters, through which college students are required to intern at two separate placement websites, break up up by 12 months. Placements start initially of this system, so college students are immersed within the discipline part of their training from day one. However this established academic construction posed a dilemma when attempting to duplicate it in an internet setting: How can applications that settle for candidates from all throughout the nation discover high quality placements for each scholar, together with these in rural and distant areas?
To handle this problem, the varsity created the Virtual Field Practicum (VFP), a 15-week course that college students take their first semester in discipline on foundational observe abilities of social work. Every week, college students full 4 hours of stay digital classroom actions and about 12 hours of unbiased actions that introduce them to the Council of Social Work Education’s (CSWE) nine core competencies (PDF, 390 KB), the National Association of Social Worker’s (NASW) ethical standards for practice, and three evidenced-based interventions: motivational interviewing, problem-solving remedy and cognitive behavioral remedy. In the course of the VFP, the small group of 10 college students in every class works with a simulated consumer — an actor who’s loosely scripted by USC school to current difficult social and emotional situations — to use the evidence-based interventions and different observe abilities comparable to case administration, documentation and analysis.
“Our Digital Subject Practicum is state-of-the-art and ensures each scholar has a standardized expertise of their first semester,” Supranovich stated. “It might probably higher put together college students in order that they’re able to work in businesses which are of their communities as a result of they’ve obtained this strong preliminary coaching. We hear from many businesses that they actually recognize the foundational coaching that each one the scholars arrive with.”
Starting the sphere part of an MSW program with the VFP additionally permits the sphere placement group extra time to search out high quality placements for college kids. And slightly than swap placement websites halfway by this system, the scholars keep at one placement web site in the course of this system following the completion of the VFP.
“Some businesses actually just like the continuity care of getting a scholar for 3 consecutive semesters,” Supranovich stated. “They really feel they’ve extra time to coach the scholars.”
Leveraging a Rising Alumni Community for Placements
When college students are able to transition to their field placements, the web program is ready to lean on partnerships with many businesses nationwide in addition to the alumni community, which has grown the previous decade.
“Ten years later, we’ve alumni everywhere in the U.S. who attain out and need to have college students intern with them. We leverage these relationships to search out them the very best placements,” Supranovich stated. “There’s most likely not anyplace within the U.S. that we don’t have a footprint at this level.”
“Ten years later, we’ve alumni everywhere in the U.S. who attain out and need to have college students intern with them. We leverage these relationships to search out them the very best placements,”
– Ruth Ann Supranovich
So far as which fields entice college students essentially the most, Supranovich has seen vital curiosity in each school social work and military social work, fields the web program covers with specialised studying tracks. Many college students have additionally prioritized placements that handle built-in behavioral well being, opioid-use and substance-use issues and transitional age youth.
USC’s program with the Los Angeles County Police Department locations interns all through the town the place they may help officers handle social points that have an effect on native communities. Interns assist construct infrastructure and supply direct intervention, tailoring this system to the precise wants of populations, which may embrace addressing issues comparable to gang violence and home violence.
Reimagining the Subject Web site
However very like their work to deliver the academic portion of the MSW expertise on-line, USC has additionally pioneered bringing the sphere placement into the digital realm.
USC’s Telehealth online clinic, which launched in 2012, makes use of video conferencing to offer face-to-face counseling and psychotherapy for people and households. Telehealth additionally homes a instructing clinic for MSW college students through which they full a six-week coaching designed and facilitated by Telehealth scientific school. The coaching consists of on-line modules, stay coaching periods and role-plays to organize interns to satisfy with shoppers independently. The net clinic has served 1000’s of shoppers and addresses a spread of points together with intimate accomplice violence, sexual assault and human trafficking.
Having a digital placement web site in the course of the pandemic proved essential for responding each to the tutorial wants of scholars and the psychological and emotional wants of shoppers. Social distancing necessities in the course of the pandemic restricted alternatives for conventional placements in college students’ communities. On the similar time, many individuals had been feeling the mixed results of well being challenges related to COVID-19, job losses ensuing from lockdowns and the emotional toll of social unrest.
“COVID’s impression has revealed the worth and significance of on-line applications … and resulted in additional openness, reception and acceptance about [telebehavioral health],”
– Caliboso-Soto
“We requested ourselves, what can we do to broaden our capability to serve the group and to soak up these MSW college students who want to complete their discipline placement requirement to graduate?” stated Sarah Caliboso-Soto, scientific assistant professor for discipline training and interim scientific director of USC Telehealth, in an article on the expansion of USC’s Telehealth efforts.
In response, Telehealth created the SAFE-T program, bringing in additional than 40 new college students over the summer time to serve people within the Los Angeles group impacted by COVID-19. Utilizing the Psychological First Help/Pay attention, Shield, Join mannequin designed to help individuals in disaster, college students assigned to the SAFE-T program offered counseling or case administration periods to 150 people referred to USC Telehealth by group or governmental organizations.
“COVID’s impression has revealed the worth and significance of on-line applications … and resulted in additional openness, reception and acceptance about [telebehavioral health],” Caliboso-Soto advised Social Work At present in an article highlighting the effectiveness of the telebehavioral health (TBH) care model.
Persevering with to Evolve the Social Work Career
With the ability to pivot to the altering world was made doable in some ways due to the expertise in on-line training and fieldwork that USC has developed the previous decade. And that capability to pivot and adapt is an important facet to the sphere of social work. The truth is, Supranovich stated many college students study this lesson as they progress in fieldwork.
“College students actually are available in with some concepts about what they need to do, however they usually will change their concepts as soon as they study extra about what social work has to supply,” she stated.
Very similar to the varsity will proceed to study and evolve over the following decade, Supranovich encourages college students to consider themselves as lifelong learners who can use their training within the classroom and the sphere to cement a robust basis from which to construct.
“Your discipline expertise in your MSW is what provides you the arrogance to say, ‘I’ve executed this earlier than. I understand how to do that. I do know that I can enhance. And I do know that I’m succesful,’” she stated.
Quotation for this content material: The MSW@USC, the online Master of Social Work program on the College of Southern California.
