Practicum

Greetings from the Office of Field Education!

Field education (i.e. practicum) is the signature pedagogy for social work. This means that field education is the key method of instruction and learning through which our profession socializes its students to become practitioners. Because it is such a critical part of becoming a social worker, the practicum is often considered the 'heart' of social work education.

Practicum offers students practical and supervised opportunities to develop and apply their social work knowledge and skills. The practicum promotes integration of the theory and skills students are learning in the classroom with their professional practice and social work identity. In practicum, all students are supervised by an experienced, agency-based social worker who functions as the Field Instructor. In addition to ongoing guidance and feedback, the field instructor provides the student a minimum of one hour of supervision for every 15 placement hours. Students are also linked with a university-based faculty member who acts as the Faculty Liaison. The faculty liaison, who is the teacher-of-record for the practicum course, facilitates the integrative seminar that accompanies the practicum placement, makes regular visits (on-site or via distance) to placement agencies and participates in evaluations of the student's achievement.

The BSW and MSW Field Education Manuals outline the faculty's policies and procedures related to field education. For each specific practicum course, a program-specific Course Book outlines the learning objectives and contains the Learning Agreement and other important practicum forms for students, field instructors and faculty liaisons. Students are encouraged to become familiar with the Manual that applies to their degree (either BSW or MSW) and especially with the Course Book that relates to their specific practicum course/courses. Please note that during the 2009-2010 year, we will be transitioning to online completion of most or all of the forms in the Course Book, such as the Learning Agreement. The BSW and MSW Manuals, Course Books, and forms - as well as a link to the online database - can all be found on this site.

In addition to the faculty liaisons, who work closely with students and field instructors, the faculty and staff at the Office of Field Education are committed to providing quality support to further enrich the field education experience of students and field instructors. We are available for consultation to students, field instructors, partner agency representatives, and faculty liaisons.

We wish you a successful and rewarding field education experience!

Jessica Ayala, Director
Ellen Perrault, Calgary Coordinator
Ellen Schmaltz, Administrator