Online MSW — Social Work Field Experience

So I’m going to take a couple of minutes to talk about the field education components of our MSW program. Field education provides students with the opportunity to integrate all of the material from coursework, all the coursework that Jen just discussed, into actual practice under the supervision of an MSW with two or more years of experience. We often refer to the coursework as filling our students’ tool bag with theories, skills, interventions. Students then take that tool bag out into the field and practice.

The field seminars that coincide with the hours spent in the field provide space for students to come back and unpack their experiences with a focus on self-reflection and feedback from instructors. Advanced standing students, as Jen mentioned, come to our program with a BSW and only complete one field placement with Widener. All students in the regular MSW program will complete two distinct field placements. The first is the generalist. Just as it sounds. That’s our foundation: field placement.

The second is the specialization. As Jen had mentioned, our only specialization or concentration at Widener is clinical. So all students can expect their specialization, your field placement to have a clinical focus. Both placements take place over two consecutive semesters at a single agency. Typically, unless you’ve had transfer credits or other changes to your program ladder, most students can expect to begin their first field placement in the fifth semester of our program.

So a little more details about the field placements that you’ll be expected to complete while at Widener. The generalist field placement requires a total of 450 hours, which is broken down to 16 hours per week with a minimum of six direct client contact hours weekly. The specialization field placement requires a total of 560 hours, which breaks down to about 20 hours per week with a minimum of nine direct client contact hours.

Many students will certainly get more than the minimum direct client contact hours. But what that does is leaves room for all of the work that we do as social workers. As Jen mentioned, it’s not just the clinical practice, but it leaves time and space for some of the more macro tasks that students will need to complete while they’re in field. For the specialization field placement, we also offer an extended field option, which allows students to complete that placement over three consecutive semesters, usually breaking down to approximately 16 hours per week. This is a good option for our students who come to our program perhaps who work full-time and have other obligations and see the 20-hour a week minimum as maybe a barrier to completing the degree. So by completing one extra semester, which has a one credit fee only, students can complete the required field hours and maintain their well-being, which is a really critical piece for us at Widener.

We are currently prioritizing in-person learning opportunities for field. However, if an agency is functioning in a hybrid format, we would consider that for student learning. Likewise, if we were to experience another increase in the pandemic requiring agencies to shift to virtual work with their clients, we would look at that on a case by case basis as well.

Matching students with a field setting that provides rich supervision and learning opportunities appropriate to the field year, generalist or specialization, is the goal of the field placement process and requires significant preparation and planning. Each student at Widener is assigned to an assistant director of field who is familiar with their geographic area and works one-on-one with the student during the planning phase. We do engage students in identifying potential options, but we do not require that students find their own field placements. The task of identifying agencies of interest is purposeful, as it requires the student to demonstrate an understanding of either generalist or specialization agency-based social work tasks, as well as their ability to identify resources in the community where they reside.

Widener requests or requires that students make one full business day available for field. In the event that students do not have this availability, we will work with them to find placements offered during evenings and weekends. However, I have to be transparent and say that this is challenging, and we cannot guarantee, as we don’t have the authority over agencies that we work with. So keep in mind that while some agencies function 24/7, such as hospitals and residential facilities, they do not all provide services with MSW supervision during these off hours. That’s a component that’s really critical to the field education requirements.

In the event that a match is not made due to a student’s availability, we do have the flexibility in our program to delay the start of field and continue planning until we’re successful. We strongly encourage students to consider at the start of the program how they will incorporate the field education requirements into their already busy schedules. There is a lot that we can offer flexibility on in this program, but due to accreditation standards, field hours and requirements are not among those that we can change or flex very much.

Some students who work in the field do complete their field education requirements at their agency of employment. This can sometimes be done by focusing on a subset of their existing clients or tasks through their work as long as the agency can provide a separate MSW field instructor, which is an accreditation standard through CSWE. Other times, students might identify other programs within their agencies to complete their field education requirements.

I recognize that there’s a lot of information packed into these two slides and many requirements related to the field education component of our program. Keep in mind that CSWE, our accrediting body, has designated field as our signature pedagogy for the MSW degree. Despite the challenges and barriers that we might face, this is the part of the program that many students enjoy the most, remember the most, and this is the time where many students truly connect with the material and blossom into-