Social Work Education

Dear Field Colleagues, 

We would like to revise how we grade the final field evaluation in both BSW and MSW field and would love to hear how you grade it. For instance, what if a student fails all but one competency- how do you grade that- is it an overall fail for the evaluation only or for the whole field experience? Can you also share how you grade the mid-term evaluation where there are more likely needs improvements but that seems reasonable given where they are in the internship? 

Additionally, what is your policy for allowing a student to do another internship if they are terminated from their current one? It would be one thing if they violated a core principle and caused harm but what if they aren't performing- do you handle this differently and allow them to move to another placement? In doing so, do you require more hours since there is orientation, etc that has to be done at the new place. Do you have limit on how much they can move? Anything you could share is appreciated. 

If you want to email me (Lynn.Jackson@tcu.edu) directly, I'll compile what I receive and report back on the listserve.  Thank you, Lynn

Lynn Jackson, Ph.D., LCSW, ACSW, FNAP

she/her/hers                                                                        

Assistant Dean for Strategic Initiatives

Professor of Professional Practice/Director of Field Education

TCU Department of Social Work

TCU Box 298750

Fort Worth, TX 76129

(817) 257-5575

#FieldEducation
#FieldEd
#CouncilonFieldEducation(COFE)

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Lynn Jackson
Director of Field Education
TCU Social Work
Ft Worth TX
817-257-5575
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These are such great questions. I'm very interested in the answers you receive as we are just getting ready to launch our new BSW program and I'm seeing all the areas we will need to pay attention to.

Patricia Sherman, PhD., LCSW (NJ), LICSW (MN)
(she, her, hers)

BSW Program Director

Capella University

School of Public Service & Education

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Patricia Sherman
NJ
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This is a great question and just came up in a conversation I had with our assessment coordinator. Currently, we tell students that they need to achieve passing marks in each competency (this comes out to a 3 on a 1-5 scale) in order to pass field. Because that is the case and field instructors are aware of that, we rarely have students not earn a 3 or above, but this is likely inflating data as field instructors don't want students to fail if they seemed to do a good job in general. I am curious to learn how other programs manage this.

For the midterm evaluations, we ask these to just be an honest check in and tell students that it is expected that they have not gotten to all of the competencies at midterm. There is an area in the assessment for them to indicate their plans to meet any competencies that they haven't gotten to yet and this is also sometimes a time when the learning contract may need to be adjusted if they realize that their initial plan is not realistic.

As for allowing students to be re-placed if they are terminated from a placement, we deal with this on a case by case basis. We would convene an academic review with our faculty committee, the student, perhaps the field instructor, and any other relevant stakeholders. We would discuss what happened, what the student's perspective is, an then our committee makes a recommendation that may be a new placement, or termination from the program or something in between depending.

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Lindsey Rinehart
Field Education Director & Clinical Instructor
West Virginia University
Morgantown WV
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