Faculty Field Education Liaison Roles and Responsibilities

The responsibility of the Faculty Field Education liaison is to make sure the agency instructor is given the tools and information needed to feel prepared to supervise the senior practicum student from EMU. Additionally the Faculty Field Education liaison is the link for the student between EMU's social work program and the agency practicum experience. This is accomplished in several ways.

To Field Instructors:

1. The Faculty Field Education liaison provides a general orientation to each agency instructor and answers any specific questions of the agency instructor. For local placements this is a meeting in person at the agency site. For Washington DC placements this is done via technology (phone, synchoronous ZOOM sessions, & email) after the agency instructor is given a copy of the Manual for their reference.

For all agency instructors the faculty liaison remains available to be contacted at any point during the practicum semester by phone or by email.

1. A checkpoint contact can occur right after mid-semester, (either with a visit or by contact) to review the student and field instructor assessment of learning from the first half of the semester and to gauge whether student goals should be adjusted for the second half of the semester by the team of student, instructor and faculty.
2. The final site visit is scheduled to include a summary of the practicum, connect on the final practicum evaluation expectation, and affirm the student's learning journey and next professional steps. The final paperwork, sent from the program and filled out on-line, is used for re-accreditation research and to evaluate and improve our program. For local agencies this is an on-site visit. For Washington DC, or other non-local placement sites, this visit may involve the use of technology if a physical visit is not possible for the faculty coordinator/liaison.

To students:

1. Students are required to attend a weekly on-campus 2 hour seminar class facilitated by the faculty coordinator/liaison to process their field experiences and continue to learn and apply pertinent personal and professional information for ongoing growth. Students in Washington DC, or a non-local placement, attend a seminar class as arranged via Zoom. Additionally, each student is required to stay current with turning in assignments.
2. For all students the faculty coordinator/liaison remains available to be contacted at any point during the practicum semester by phone, by email or in person.
3. The faculty coordinator/liaison evokes "best practice" as a personal and professional role model.