SW 491 - Field Instruction I

Credits: 4

SW 491 Field Instruction I provides supervised social work experience in a human service agency and opportunities to integrate knowledge acquired in class into professional practice. The field placement will assist in preparing undergraduate students to practice social work both competently and ethically with clients/systems. The practicum provides students with structured, supervised opportunities to integrate the values, skills and knowledge learned in the classroom into interactions with actual clients and systems in practice. The field experience will focus on problem solving at multiple levels, with individuals, families, groups, organizations and communities. Students will learn to examine how environmental conditions may affect people adversely. The student will develop an awareness of how “who they are” impacts the process of intervention. Professional communication, consistent with the language of the practice area, will be mastered by students. Professional supervision will be utilized by students to enhance their own learning process. Finally, students will be asked to critique, implement and evaluate their host agency’s policies/procedures while practicing within ethical guidelines. Direct experience through field instruction enhances classroom learning by providing opportunities to have direct contact with client systems, field agencies and the community. This course helps students integrate research-based social work knowledge and theory with experiences in field practice. Students will critically examine how empirically based theories of human development and behavior, and knowledge of practice skills, relate to actual application in agency settings. This course will have a generalist practice orientation, and focuses on exposing students to social work with the interrelated and interdependent human systems which include individuals, families, groups, organizations and communities. Students will be exposed to working with people across the life span from children, adolescents, adults and elders. This course builds upon a liberal arts perspective by emphasizing the person in relationship to their environment, including culture, art, spirituality, and the social sciences. Students are assigned to field sites that serve diverse client systems and diverse needs within the community and client systems. In each placement, as is feasible, learning opportunities should be sought that will expose students to working with people across the life span, providing diversity of age in caseloads and responsibilities. Students will be placed in human service agencies within the region under professional supervision with practitioners. Through their supervision, students will further develop their skills, professional identity, values, and knowledge and skills base. An integral part of the field site selection process includes students’ application to agencies approved by the BSW program. Agency settings will allow students to see and describe how theoretical knowledge applies to direct practice experience as they begin to apply knowledge and skills with varying client systems while developing and maintaining professional social work values and ethics. Field instruction experience provides a foundation for students to integrate classroom knowledge and skills while appreciating the integration of a strength-based model and a bio-psycho-social-spiritual-cultural perspective. Students will be exposed to contemporary structures, issues and policies that clients, agencies and social workers face. Prerequisites: SW 304, SW 410, SW 305, SW 303 Corequisites: SW 411, SW 495 . Course fee applies. Refer to the Schedule of Classes.