SW 701 Foundation Field Practicum Learning Contract Supplement: A Guide to Completing the Learning Contract Welcome to Practicum! Practicum is a time for blending classroom lecture and assignments to actual practice in the social work field. Students should begin identifying learning activities from their first days in the agency. While students are the principal authors of their learning contracts, field instructors and field liaisons are resources and consultants. This supplement is meant to be a resource in completing your Learning Contract by providing organized questions to promote deeper thought and insight into the and giving an excerpt of a learning contract. Please use this as it is intended: as a supplemental guide to promote thought and to help you identify possible learning activities. This supplement is not intended to limit your creativity in fulfilling the required practice behaviors for your practicum. Deeper Insight to : This supplement is meant to be a resource by giving you organized questions to promote deeper thought and insight into the and to promote thoughts on how you might demonstrate, monitor and evaluate your application of skill sets and progress. Special attention must be given to the last section 2.1.10; for each of the four phases of social work practice. Plan at least one assignment to observe the implementation of each of the practice behaviors. This should be completed by midterm in the fall semester of field practicum. Completion can be met by shadowing your field instructor, preceptor, or other agency staff social worker. Demonstration of Practice Behavior: Your learning contract should include descriptions of learning activities for each of the listed under each of the broader Competencies. Describe the full range of direct practice assignments available to you within your practicum agency. Learning activities are likely to tap into more than one practice behavior. For example when completing an initial assessment with an individual client, defining professional boundaries may be necessary. Consult with your field instructor and field liaison to identify where multiple practice behaviors are likely to cluster in your practicum assignments and briefly cross reference them in your learning contract. There undoubtedly will be overlap and duplication in describing learning opportunities; and applicable learning opportunities could demonstrate multiple practice behaviors. You should plan to include opportunities to work with individuals, families, groups, the organizational context of the agency, and the community within your learning contract Steps to Monitor and Evaluate Progress: Provide a description of how your progress with each practice behavior will be monitored, assessed, and evaluated. In other words, how will you, your field instructor, and your field liaison know your level of accomplishment for each practice behavior? How will your progress with the be visible and known? The assessment of your progress should be regularly discussed in your supervisory conferences with your field instructor. This assessment activity can be used with nearly all of the practice behaviors. However, strive to include a variety of methods to monitor your progress. Reflective writing assignments are helpful. You are also urged to have your field instructor directly observe your work and provide you with feedback. Electronic recording (audio and/or video) can be quite powerful in assessing your progress. Case presentations and structured feedback from other staff members can also be useful.
Getting Started! Set a preliminary date for the beginning of client assignments. Your field instructor is likely to have some expectations about practice behaviors that indicate a readiness for direct practice assignments. Invite a conversation with your field instructor about what you need to do to demonstrate your readiness. Begin to provide services to clients once your field instructor and you determine your readiness. Your direct practice assignments and organizational assignments should provide opportunities to explore, learn, and implement each of the practice behaviors. Your application of these practice behaviors should be a major topic for your regular supervisory conferences. 2.1.1 Identify as a professional social worker Social workers serve as representatives of the profession, its mission, and its core values. They know the profession s history. Social workers commit themselves to the profession s enhancement and to their own professional conduct and growth. a. Describe learning opportunities to advocate for client access to social work services. How will you assess clients for services? What is your role to connect clients to services? What barriers frequently exist for clients accessing services? What efforts can you make to eliminate barriers for clients? b. Describe how you will practice personal reflection and self-correction to promote your professional development. What learning activities will promote your awareness of self in the role of a professional social worker? How will you intentionally assess and reflect on your professional development? How can you incorporate personal reflection into your professional activities? How will you seek insight and reflection from other professionals regarding your professional development? What activities will help you to implement self-identified changes to improve professional practice? c. What assignments will you have to show your understanding of professional roles and boundaries? Plan for assignments that will engage you in accurately describing the role of the social worker within your practicum agency. What professional roles and boundaries will challenge your concepts of roles and boundaries? How will you monitor and demonstrate increasing understanding of your professional roles? d. Demonstrate professional demeanor in behavior, appearance, and communication: what will you do in your practicum to implement this practice behavior? How will you demonstrate professional behavior consistent with the expectations within your practicum agency? How will you monitor the appropriateness of your professional behavior, appearance and communication? What do you identify as opportunities for growth in these areas? e. Identify assignments that will promote your skills and abilities for career long learning. What opportunities lie within the agency for ongoing skill building and learning?
Identify opportunities to reach out beyond just your practicum agency for professional development? Have you utilized your Field Instructor and supervision to discuss opportunities for ongoing skill development and career long learning? f. Describe the activities you will be regularly carrying-out that will enable you to use supervision and consultation. How will you best utilize supervision? How will you prepare yourself to get the most out of supervision? Reflect on your ability to implement insights and corrections from supervision to practice. What will you do to make the most use of feedback from your field instructor, preceptor, and other agency staff members? 2.1.2 Apply social work ethical principles to guide professional practice Social workers have an obligation to conduct themselves ethically and to engage in ethical decision making. Social workers are knowledgeable about the value base of the profession, its ethical standards, and relevant law. a. Describe assignments that will give you opportunities to recognize and manage your personal values so that you can then use professional values to guide your practice. How will you engage in professional reflection to recognize the influence of personal values in your work? Can you identify any personal values that may be in conflict with social work practice? Describe activities that will involve you in recognizing your application of professional values in your practice. What opportunities exist to discuss personal and professional value conflicts with your Field Instructor? Plan for opportunities to learn how other social workers manage value conflicts within their professional roles. b. Identify assignments where you will practice making ethical decisions by applying standards from the NASW Code of Ethics. Complete a reflective writing sample that explores your application of the NASW Code of Ethics. Identify standards from the Code of Ethics that have particular relevance for you practicum agency. How are staff members supported in using the NASW Code of Ethics? What opportunities exist to discuss the application of NASW Code of Ethics with your Field Instructor? c. What assignments will you use to demonstrate your ability to tolerate ambiguity in resolving ethical conflicts? What ethical conflicts are familiar to social workers in your agency? How are staff members supported when ethical conflicts arise? Make a point of discussing your feelings that accompany specific ethical conflicts. What opportunities exist to discuss ethical conflicts with your Field Instructor?
Explore with your field instructor and other staff social workers different approaches to the uncertainties surrounding ethical conflicts. d. Describe assignments where you will apply strategies of ethical reasoning to accomplish principled decisions. What ethical reasoning strategies are used by social workers and other agency staff members? What opportunities exist to discuss ethical reasoning to meet desired outcomes with your Field Instructor? Apply knowledge of ethical decision-making frameworks from your courses and readings. Identify how the core values and ethical principles from the NASW Code of Ethics factor into accomplishing desired outcomes. Explore how an ethical reasoning strategy helps to address ethical conflicts. 2.1.3 Apply critical thinking to inform and communicate professional judgments Social workers are knowledgeable about the principles of logic, scientific inquiry, and reasoned discernment. They use critical thinking augmented by creativity and curiosity. Critical thinking also requires the synthesis and communication of relevant information. a. What assignments will involve you in differentiating, evaluating, and integrating multiple sources of knowledge? Foster your awareness of how you use multiple sources of knowledge to guide your professional work. Identify and discuss experiences that challenge your thinking. How do multiple sources of knowledge impact your perspective of each phase of the helping process including research based knowledge and practice wisdom? b. Identify assignments that will provide practice analyzing models of assessment, prevention, intervention, and evaluation. What models of assessment, prevention, intervention, and evaluation are most frequently used within the agency? What models used in the agency are new to you? What opportunities exist for you to observe and increase your understanding of these models? Describe opportunities within the agency that allow you to practice your own skills of analyzing models of assessment, prevention, intervention and evaluation. c. Demonstrate effective oral and written communication in working with individuals, families, groups, organizations, communities, and colleagues. What modes of professional communication are available for you to use? What opportunities exist for your demonstration of communication skills within the agency and community? How will you use oral and written communication modalities to meet the needs of your clients and the agency? Explore and reflect on the policies and protocols guiding communication in the agency, with clients, and the community. How will you elicit and use feedback to evaluate the effectiveness of your communication?
2.1.4 Engage diversity and difference in practice Social workers understand how diversity characterizes and shapes the human experience and is critical to the formation of identity. The dimensions of diversity are understood as the intersectionality of multiple factors including age, class, color, culture, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, immigration status, political ideology, race, religion, sex, and sexual orientation. Social workers appreciate that, as a consequence of difference, a person s life experiences may include oppression, poverty, marginalization, and alienation as well as privilege, power, and acclaim. a. Identify assignments that will give you opportunities to recognize the ways in which a culture s structure and values may oppress, marginalize, alienate, or create or enhance privilege and power. How have you encountered and been affected by the culture s structure and values? How has the dominant culture s structure and values affected the lives of clients served by your practicum agency? What approaches are being used in your agency to honor diversity and prevent oppressive practices? What additional steps would enhance the agency s efforts to provide services that are sensitive to multiple dimensions of diversity? b. Define activities that will support you in gaining sufficient self-awareness to eliminate influence of personal biases and values in working with diverse groups. What experiences will help you to become more aware of your personal biases and values that could limit effective engagement with diverse groups? What experiences with diversity have already helped you to challenge personal biases? How can you build upon these? How might you seek to learn more about the nature of your biases and explore alternative understandings and perspectives? c. What assignments will enable you to recognize and communicate your understanding of the importance of difference in shaping life experiences? What is your understanding of the importance of differences in shaping life experience? How might your own life experiences differentiate from the clients that you serve? What opportunities exist for you to challenge your own perspectives based on the life experiences of your clients? How will you communicate this understanding to agency staff, clients and faculty? d. What activities will you engage which will help you to be a learner and to regard those with whom you work as the experts (informants) on their lived experiences. What opportunities exist to explore and gain understanding of the life experiences of others? How can you incorporate respect and appreciation of the life experiences of others into your service delivery? 2.1.5 Advance human rights and social and economic justice Each person, regardless of position in society, has basic human rights, such as freedom, safety, privacy, an adequate standard of living, health care, and education. Social workers recognize the global interconnections of oppression and are knowledgeable about theories of justice and strategies to promote human and civil rights. Social work incorporates social justice practices in organizations, institutions, and society to ensure that these basic human rights are distributed equitably and without prejudice. a. Identify activities that will support you in understanding the forms and mechanisms of oppression and discrimination.
What forms of oppression and discrimination exist within the community served by the agency? How does the agency strive to address forms of oppression and discrimination that exist within the community and have impacted the client population? How does the agency advocate to eliminate oppression and discrimination within the community and services? What opportunities exist for you to examine your own beliefs regarding oppression and discrimination? b. What assignments will involve you in advocating for human rights and social and economic justice? Make it a priority to understand how the agency addresses human rights and advocates for social and economic justice? How are agency staff actively involved in efforts to advocate for human rights and social and economic justice? How can you become constructively involved and contribute to these efforts? c. Describe assignments that will engage you in practices that advance social and economic justice. Become familiar with the National Association of Social Workers, the Association for Community Organization and Social Administration, or other professional social work organization to become aware of advocacy efforts to advance social and economic justice. Identify opportunities for you to become involved in the advancement of social and economic justice. 2.1.6 Engage in research-informed practice and practice informed research Social workers use practice experience to inform research, employ evidence-based interventions, evaluate their own practice, and use research findings to improve practice, policy, and social service delivery. Social workers comprehend quantitative and qualitative research and understand scientific and ethical approaches to building knowledge. a. Describe learning assignments within the agency that will enable you to identify research questions directly related your social work practice experiences. Discuss with your field instructor known research projects and data gathering utilized within the agency. Become knowledgeable of how practice experience guides and informs research within the agency. Who within the organization already utilizes research? How does the agency use research to evaluate client outcomes? How does the agency use research findings to maintain and improve service programs? Impact overall agency norms? b. Identify research evidence that guides social work practice within your practicum agency. Compile an annotated bibliography of research studies that help to inform social work practice in your practicum agency. What research evidence is used to establish best practices within your practicum agency? How are agency staff members using research findings to guide practice?
2.1.7 Apply knowledge of human behavior and the social environment. Social workers are knowledgeable about human behavior across the life course; the range of social systems in which people live; and the ways social systems promote or deter people in maintaining or achieving health and well-being. Social workers apply theories and knowledge from the liberal arts to understand biological, social, cultural, psychological, and spiritual development. a. Using knowledge acquired from your courses, including theoretical and conceptual frameworks, describe how this knowledge guides the processes of engagement, assessment, intervention, and evaluation in your practicum experiences. What theories and conceptual frameworks are most often used to guide practice in your agency? What sources of knowledge about human behavior and the life course are most applicable to practice in your agency? b. Identify assignments that engage you in the thoughtful critique and application of knowledge to understand person and environment. You should plan experiences that support you in examining the strengths and limitations of different sources of knowledge about human behavior and the social environment. Identify opportunities you will have to implement a person and environment perspective of understand human behavior. Prepare to discuss with your field instructor how some sources of knowledge may be helpful in one context but also be limited or potentially harmful in other contexts. 2.1.8 Engage in policy practice to advance social and economic well-being and to deliver effective social work services. Social work practitioners understand that policy affects service delivery, and they actively engage in policy practice. Social workers know the history and current structures of social policies and services; the role of policy in service delivery; and the role of practice in policy development. a. Within the context of your practicum agency outline a project that will support you in developing the skills to analyze, formulate, and advocate for policies that advance social well-being; Become familiar with the agency policies that are especially relevant to social work practice and services provided to clients. How does the agency shape or change policies to better serve the well-being of clients? How do policies enacted at the community, state, and federal levels impact services within the agency? What policy changes would better support the well-being of the agency s client population? How do agency administrators and/or staff members participate in policy practice? b. Include in your project a description of your opportunities to collaborate with colleagues and clients for effective policy action. What is the current process to develop polices within the agency? Who is involved in policy development; what insights can they share about the process? What role does the agency play in the wider community to address systemic social problems?
2.1.9 Respond to contexts that shape practice. Social workers are informed, resourceful, and proactive in responding to evolving organizational, community, and societal contexts at all levels of practice. Social workers recognize that the context of practice is dynamic, and use knowledge and skill to respond proactively. a. Continuously discover, appraise, and attend to changing locales, populations, scientific and technological developments, and emerging societal trends to provide relevant services; i. Identify a learning assignment that will directly involve you in collaborating with agency staff and the agency s community partners to respond to organizational and community changes. Who are the agency s community partners? What collaborations already exist? What community change efforts already exist? How will you become involved in agency and community change efforts? b. Provide leadership in promoting sustainable changes in service delivery and practice to improve the quality of social services. i. Develop a proposal to enhance the quality of agency services with full regard for the agency s role in the community, the organizational context of the agency, existing resources, and staff morale. What change efforts are currently in progress? How have changes in the community, technological developments, and emerging populations impacted agency programs and services? What efforts can you make to enhance service delivery? For each of the following four core practice behaviors of social work practice, plan at least one assignment to observe the implementation of each of the practice behaviors. This can be met by shadowing your field instructor, preceptor, or other agency staff social worker. This should be completed by mid-term in the fall semester of field practicum. As you begin to engage direct practice experiences with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and the community, plan with your field instructor to systematically monitor your progress implementing the practice behaviors for Engagement, Assessment, Intervention, and Evaluation. Your field instructor should have opportunities to directly observe your use of the practice behaviors. 2.1.10 Engage, assess, intervene, and evaluate with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. Professional practice involves the dynamic and interactive processes of engagement, assessment, intervention, and evaluation at multiple levels. Social workers have the knowledge and skills to practice with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. Practice knowledge includes identifying, analyzing, and implementing evidence-based interventions designed to achieve client goals; using research and technological advances; evaluating program outcomes and practice effectiveness; developing, analyzing, advocating, and providing leadership for policies and services; and promoting social and economic justice. 2.1.10(a) Engagement
What opportunities will you have to engage with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities? Identify the client systems you will be assigned to. a. Substantively and affectively prepare for action with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities; b. Use empathy and other interpersonal skills; and c. Develop a mutually agreed-on focus of work and desired outcomes. 2.1.10(b) Assessment What assessments opportunities with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities exist for you? a. Collect, organize, and interpret client data; b. Assess client strengths and limitations; c. Develop mutually agreed-on intervention goals and objectives; and d. Select appropriate intervention strategies. 2.1.10(c) Intervention What intervention opportunities with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities exist for you? a. Initiate actions to achieve organizational goals; b. Implement prevention interventions that enhance client capacities; c. Help clients resolve problems; d. Negotiate, mediate, and advocate for clients; and e. Facilitate transitions and endings. 2.1.10(d) Evaluation What evaluation opportunities with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities exist for you? a. Critically analyze, monitor, and evaluate interventions.
Following is a sample excerpt for competency 2.1.1. 2.1.1 Identify as a professional social worker Practice Behavior d. Demonstrate professional demeanor in behavior, appearance, and communication: what will you do in your practicum to implement this practice behavior? Demonstration of Practice Behavior: *My behavior will demonstrate professionalism with my interactions with peers and clients. *My professional demeanor and communication will be evident within the agency and in the community while representing the agency. *My professional behavior will reflect that I am an ambassador of the agency and mission. *My communication verbal and written will be timely, courteous and professional at all times. *I will dress professionally appropriate; being mindful to adhere to all agency dress codes, including appropriateness of tattoos/piercings and covering as necessary. *I will be mindful of agency policies around communication such as response time to phone calls and emails etc e. Identify assignments that will promote your skills and abilities for career-long learning. Demonstration of Practice Behavior: *My behavior will demonstrate professionalism with my interactions with peers and clients. *My professional demeanor and communication will be evident within the agency and in the community while representing the agency. *My professional behavior will reflect that I am an ambassador of the agency and mission. *My communication verbal and written will be timely, courteous and professional at all times. *I will be mindful of agency policies around communication such as response time to phone calls and emails etc *I will dress professionally appropriate; being mindful to adhere to all agency dress codes, including appropriateness of tattoos/piercings and covering as necessary. f. Describe the activities you will be regularly carrying-out that will enable you to use supervision and consultation. Demonstration of Practice Behavior: *I will meet with my Field Instructor a minimum of one time a week for a approximately one hour per week. *I will seek this out and attempt to have it be consistent; if it cannot be consistent I will be proactive in requesting meeting time. *I will attempt to request at the end of every supervision meeting to set the date and time of the next supervision. *I will go into supervision with an open mind knowing this is an opportunity for critical review and fine tuning of my skills and opportunity for personal growth. *I will go into supervision with an agenda ready with points of interest, questions and insights. *I will be committed to following up on learning points identified in supervision. *I will be mindful of my learning contract and use it as a tool to direct my practice within the agency.
Steps to Monitor and Evaluate Progress: *Evaluation of my demeanor and appearance will be on a daily and ongoing basis by my Field Instructor, and other staff members; shall some point exist, my Field Instructor will immediately address any concern. *Communication samples (email, logs, memos, care plans, reflective writings, school writings etc) will be periodically reviewed by my Field Instructor. *Evaluation of my demeanor and professionalism will be reflected in client and agency staff feedback to myself and to my Field Instructor. *This will be evident when I can summarize the agency mission, services provided and general operations. *I will shadow a minimum of 3-5 staff members of the agency. *I will use reflective writings to examine and process my skills, feedback and growth throughout the year. *My skills and abilities for ongoing learning will be discussed and reflected upon within supervision as I develop my professional self and style. *Goals set forth will be evident by documented dates of supervision, written agendas, lists, process notes. *Insights will be revealed in supervision as discussed with Field Instructor and as application in practice. *My Field Instructor will consider my ability to incorporate her feedback into my work and growth over the course of the year.