Field Directors

Hi all, I'm wondering if any one has a form they ask field supervisors to complete if they are terminating a student from placement?  Or any other documentation or policies that help you gather appropriate info in writing? We have a problem solving process we work through and this typically involves a few different meetings with the supervisors, but as I have found myself going back and asking for more written documentation sometimes, I am thinking it would be helpful if we had a specific form to ask supervisors to complete. Anything you can share will be helpful!

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Lindsey Rinehart
Field Education Director & Clinical Instructor
West Virginia University
Morgantown WV
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Lindsey, great question. We do not have a specific form that we ask supervisors to fill out. Typically we ask that agency supervisors send the faculty liaison, or myself as the Field Director, an email outlining the concerns - we keep this for the student's file and this helps us to determine whether replacement is warranted. We also ask the faculty liaison to complete documentation as to reasons why the student was terminated and what actions were take to prevent this.

We have a policy regarding this and the steps we follow are outlined below:

a.       The Agency Supervisor/Field Instructor must communicate and document for the student the concerns. The faculty liaison must be notified and called upon to facilitate the process. If the behavior is of a serious nature, (e.g., criminal and/or threatening to others) the student may be terminated immediately. The faculty liaison and Internship Field Director are to be notified immediately.

b.       If the situation is less serious than that above, the Agency Supervisor/Field Instructor is to give a progress evaluation with action steps that need to be taken by the student. Time frames are to be stated.

c.       If the behavior of the student results in termination from that placement, but the faculty liaison and the Internship Field Director feel that the student is amenable to change, their placement in another agency is possible, no credit for hours completed will be applied to the second placement and hours from the first placement must be made up in the second placement.

d.       If a second placement is not successful for reasons having to do with unacceptable performance on the part of the student, a third placement shall not be offered to the student until "e" below has been met.

e.       The Internship Field Director will call a meeting of the faculty within two weeks of the termination. The faculty will determine the necessary action: leave of absence, counseled out of the program, discharged from the program, or discharged from the program for a probationary period.

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Dana Holcomb, DSW, LMSW-Clinical
Associate Professor and Director of Field
Ferris State University
Big Rapids, MI 49307
231-591-2763
danaholcomb@ferris.edu
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Thanks Dana, these policies are helpful as we are reassessing some of ours!

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Lindsey Rinehart
Field Education Director & Clinical Instructor
West Virginia University
Morgantown WV
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Original Message:
Sent: Dec 10, 2023 07:37
From: Dana Holcomb
Subject: Form to document reason for a placement termination?

Lindsey, great question. We do not have a specific form that we ask supervisors to fill out. Typically we ask that agency supervisors send the faculty liaison, or myself as the Field Director, an email outlining the concerns - we keep this for the student's file and this helps us to determine whether replacement is warranted. We also ask the faculty liaison to complete documentation as to reasons why the student was terminated and what actions were take to prevent this.

We have a policy regarding this and the steps we follow are outlined below:

a.       The Agency Supervisor/Field Instructor must communicate and document for the student the concerns. The faculty liaison must be notified and called upon to facilitate the process. If the behavior is of a serious nature, (e.g., criminal and/or threatening to others) the student may be terminated immediately. The faculty liaison and Internship Field Director are to be notified immediately.<o:p></o:p>

b.       If the situation is less serious than that above, the Agency Supervisor/Field Instructor is to give a progress evaluation with action steps that need to be taken by the student. Time frames are to be stated. <o:p></o:p>

c.       If the behavior of the student results in termination from that placement, but the faculty liaison and the Internship Field Director feel that the student is amenable to change, their placement in another agency is possible, no credit for hours completed will be applied to the second placement and hours from the first placement must be made up in the second placement.<o:p></o:p>

d.       If a second placement is not successful for reasons having to do with unacceptable performance on the part of the student, a third placement shall not be offered to the student until "e" below has been met.<o:p></o:p>

e.       The Internship Field Director will call a meeting of the faculty within two weeks of the termination. The faculty will determine the necessary action: leave of absence, counseled out of the program, discharged from the program, or discharged from the program for a probationary period.<o:p></o:p>

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Dana Holcomb, DSW, LMSW-Clinical
Associate Professor and Director of Field
Ferris State University
Big Rapids, MI 49307
231-591-2763
danaholcomb@ferris.edu
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Hi Lindsey,

I have been thinking along the same lines as you. At present I have students complete a Google form that asks them targeted questions about the termination. I have another Google form that the liaison completes. The questions are similar to that of the students. As instructors of record (liaison) I do expect that they will have/should have gathered information from the site and student. After a termination this week it dawned on me that adding a similar Google form for the practicum instructor to complete is necessary. As you can imagine point of view matters--hence the three different versions--and sometimes I have found things get lost in translation from the liaison to me. Capturing the responses via a Google form makes it easy to compare the information from a centralized location. Email me if you are interested in seeing the forms that I use (sewilliams2@vcu.edu).

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Shenita Williams
Director of Field Education
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, VA
804-828-0708
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Hi, Lindsey. Thankfully, we have only had this happen a couple of times in our program, but it is extremely stressful for everyone involved when it does happen. We have a form that we complete (I'm attaching it), but we also utilize a Google form that is then routed to a spreadsheet so we can easily keep track of these occurrences. I hope this helps. 

Leigh Ann

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Leigh Ann Hewes
Director of Field Education
Utica University
Utica, NY
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Hi Lindsey,

We do not have a form, but we do ask for a termination memo from the agency asking for as much detail as they can share about what steps were taken throughout the semester and what went wrong.  We also typically try to join the termination meeting or performance improvement plan meeting if caught prior to termination to ensure we are part of the conversation.  It doesn't always happen that way, but we have found that to be helpful in creating a documentation trail.

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Nicole Oceanak
Asst Director Field Education
Rutgers
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Lindsey,

We have a discontinuance form that we require the field instructor to complete. The students also completes one and both are permanent records in the students file. The form asks them both to: State the reasons that you are no longer at your placement agency; if you had a meeting prior to leaving the agency, explain what was discussed. If you did not have a meeting, explain why; Explain what you learned from the tasks and assignments that you were engaged in at the agency; What did you take away from this experience that will be useful to your growth as a professional social worker?; and What are your current educational goals for a potential placement? We launch this from SONIA. 

Hope this is helpful!,

Best, Warren

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Warren Graham, LCSW, ACSW, CASAC
Asst Dean of Practicum Education/Clinical Assoc Prof.
SUNY Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY
631-444-3161
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Thanks Warren, this is quite helpful. I'm going to compile some of this information to build a form into Tevera for our use, I think this will cut down on our back and forth to ensure we have adequate documentation!

Best,

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Lindsey Rinehart
Field Education Director & Clinical Instructor
West Virginia University
Morgantown WV
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Original Message:
Sent: Dec 18, 2023 11:21
From: Warren K. Graham
Subject: Form to document reason for a placement termination?

Lindsey,

We have a discontinuance form that we require the field instructor to complete. The students also completes one and both are permanent records in the students file. The form asks them both to: State the reasons that you are no longer at your placement agency; if you had a meeting prior to leaving the agency, explain what was discussed. If you did not have a meeting, explain why; Explain what you learned from the tasks and assignments that you were engaged in at the agency; What did you take away from this experience that will be useful to your growth as a professional social worker?; and What are your current educational goals for a potential placement? We launch this from SONIA. 

Hope this is helpful!,

Best, Warren

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Warren Graham, LCSW, ACSW, CASAC
Asst Dean of Practicum Education/Clinical Assoc Prof.
SUNY Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY
631-444-3161
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