Page Comparison

...

The proposal should briefly discuss the contacts that student has had with the hosting organization and personnel, and detail the work that the student could be involved with in the organization.
Finally, the proposal should outline a tentative weekly schedule for what activities the student will be involved with, and the expectation of the availability of supervision for these activities. 

Practicum Placement in Employment Settings

The EMU Social Work Program aims to insure that all students have quality placements where students can be engaging new learning and experiences.  The relationship between an employee/employer is
different than a student/field placement.  Attempting a practicum placement in a setting where a student is employed can raise conflicts between the roles of student learner and employee being paid to perform a specific task.  Therefore, EMU Social Work program prefers that the practicum placement occur in an organization that is not the setting of student's employment.  During the pandemic year in 2020, the program developed this policy to allow for approval of a prospective placement in an organization where the student may be employed.

Optimal field settings must provide an environment where the student is first and foremost allowed to be in a learning role.  The setting needs to provide new learning experiences where a student can be observed and supported in demonstrating behaviors that they haven’t used before.  They need to work with a qualified credentialed social worker to reflectively understand and demonstrate practice competencies according to the nine core competencies.  Per this policy, a student may request approval for an employing organization to be the site of their practicum placement if this criteria can be met: 

1. Learning Role: The field experience must be educationally driven rather than centered on routine roles that a student was already performing for the organization.
2. Field Organization: The employing setting must be able to meet the same requirements that other field organizations meet in order to host a practicum. The field organization must give consent for an employed student placement and understand the need to support the student in taking on new learning assignments and enhanced responsibilities.
3. The Field Coordinator consults with the executive director of the organization in question about how a particular student can step into an enhanced role for practicum, and how supervision for this role will be provided.
4. The EMU Social Work Program will approve the student’s request if proposed program and client assignments and supervision available provide a learning focused opportunity for the student.

Ensuring Separate Assignments from Employment:

 Responsibilities & Role: The prospective field placement assignment in the organization should be completed in a different program or represent significantly different responsibilities with clients and/or roles in an interagency network than the responsibilities and roles the student had already been performing as an employee.

The student’s field learning tasks and activities must represent an enhancement over the student’s employment job description.   The student’s anticipated field learning activities should be geared to demonstrating social work practice skills according to core competencies.

Ensuring Separate Supervision from Employment:

 Credentialed Supervision: The proposed Field Instructor for the student should be focused on supporting the student as a learner.  The prospective Field Instructor needs to be a credentialed social worker holding either BSW or MSW degrees and two years of practice experience. Field Instructor and any ongoing employment supervisor must both be knowledgeable of and consenting to working with the field student within the employing agency in two different roles.

Guidelines for Termination from Program

Social work students must continually demonstrate academic and non-academic social work competencies and proficiencies in order to remain in the social work program. Students who fail to do so will be terminated from the program. Factors contributing to student termination from the social work program are below; examples of behaviors demonstrating violations of the requirements are also included.

1. Failure to maintain an overall GPA of 2.5, or a 2.0 in all courses required in the social work major.
2. Failure to demonstrate the capacity to master necessary generalist social work competences and practice skills, such as self-awareness, critical thinking, client empathy, non-judgmental attitudes, contributions to client self-determination, and good oral and written communication skills.
   1. Demonstration of consistently poor written and/or oral communication skills that impact on professional practice expectations.
   2. Evidence of academic dishonesty (i.e. cheating, plagiarism).
3. Failure to demonstrate personal and professional conduct requisite for accepted professional standards of practice consistent with the NASW Code of Conduct.
   1. Inability to work with or relate to diverse population reflecting age, class, color, culture, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, immigration status, political ideology, race, religion, sex and sexual orientation.
   2. Disregard for principles of confidentiality or client self-determination.
4. Failure to demonstrate emotional stability requisite for professional practice
   1. Inability to deal with current life stressors through the use of appropriate coping mechanisms such as professional counseling.
   2. Derogatory oral and/or written statements about/toward others, including students, faculty, field instructors, and/or clients.
   3. Unwillingness to receive and accept feedback and supervision in a positive manner and/or failure to use such feedback to enhance professional development.
5. Failure to respond in a timely manner to a plan of correction/resolution of the problem.
6. Violations of expected professional conduct (ranging from poor attendance and follow-through on assigned tasks to inappropriate behavior towards clients) in field placements can be serious, as such conduct can lead to disruptions of placement and result in inability to finish a social work degree. 

Termination procedures

The social work program may receive a report from a classroom faculty, other student or faculty field coordinator/liaison, and/or a client or field instructor that a student has exhibited behaviors not consistent with required professional or ethical standards of practice. Such report will be reviewed by the program director and field faculty coordinator/liaison with other program faculty as necessary. If it is determined that the student may have exhibited failure to demonstrate either competence or proficiency in this matter, s/he will be formally notified by the program director or faculty coordinator/liaison. The notice will specifically enumerate the behavior(s) in question, and will require the student to meet with the faculty coordinator/liaison and another social work faculty member. During that meeting, the student will be given the opportunity to discuss the situation and explain his/her actions.

...