SW 575 Social Work Practicum Instruction III

This course is taken in the first semester (Advanced Standing) and introduces students to advanced opportunities to practice applying their social work knowledge, values, skills, and cognitive and affective processes learned in their academic courses to the field situation at an advanced level of specialist social work practice. Field provides opportunities to learn the person-in-environment framework; the application of scientific inquiry, ethical principles, and critical thinking in practice at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels; and strategies to engage diversity in practice and advocate for human rights and social and economic justice. Students are placed in a wide variety of organizational settings for their field experience, including the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Placement settings include the range of opportunities available to social work practitioners, with a particular emphasis on mental health and, when possible, clients suffering from a variety of trauma-related conditions. It is expected that all field placements will provide students with both clinical and macro practice learning opportunities. It is expected that educational planning for each placement is co-produced with the student, field instructor, and faculty-field liaison, and described in the learning agreement. This course also builds on concepts and theories covered earlier in the curriculum, such as human behavior and human development, engagement, assessment and intervention with individuals, families, groups and larger client systems, while working for equity, and social and economic justice.