Social Work Field Instructors' Views and Integration of Religion/Spirituality in Practice: A National Survey

Background and Purpose: Emerging research indicates integrating clients’ religion and spirituality (RS) in health and mental health treatment can contribute to positive outcomes. Similarly, clients are expressing a desire for their RS to be included in treatment, and that the practitioner initiate the conversation. Though RS has not always been addressed in social work education, social workers account for half of clinically trained helping professionals. The Council on Social Work Education demonstrates the importance of RS in the 2008 Education Policy Accreditation Standards and Religion and Spirituality Clearinghouse. Field education–social work education’s signature pedagogy–is a critical point for translating student learning to real world settings under the supervision of a field insutrctor. Therefore, it is important to understand field instructors’ views and integration of clients’ RS in practice. 

Little is known about field instructors’ views and integration of RS. Bell(2003) found one third of field instructors along the East Coast included RS in their work with students. Joseph(1988) found half of surveyed field instructors in Washington, D.C., felt focusing attention on religion was important, but only 16% reported religious issues/skills were important in their training. Both studies have limited generalizability, and neither examined field instructors’ self-efficacy, perceived feasibility, attitudes or integration of RS within the EBP process.

This study examines:1)What are field instructors’ self-efficacy, attitudes, perceived feasibility, and frequency of integrating clients’ RS? and 2)How do field instructors compare with non-field instructors’ item responses, subscale scores, and overall scores on the Religious/Spiritually Integrated Practice Assessment Scale(RSIPAS)?

Methods: A secondary data analysis was conducted of a national, online survey of social workers’ responses to the RSIPAS. One thousand social workers were identified through a therapist finder website, and surveyed using Dillman methods. A total of 482 responded, with 469 having complete data and 69 identifying as a MSW field instructor based on a demographic item. Chi-square analyses compared field instructors’ item responses with non-field instructors, and independent samples t-tests compared the groups’ subscale and overall RSIPAS scores.

Results: Field instructors reported high levels of self-efficacy, positive attitudes, and perceived integrating clients’ RS in practice as feasible, but engaged in such behaviors less frequently. Chi-square tests showed no difference between both groups’ responses to self-efficacy, attitudes, and perceived feasibility items after a Bonferroni correction. One item indicated field instructors engaged in the behavior more often: “I use empirically supported interventions that specifically outline how to integrate my clients’ religion/spirituality into treatment”(χ²=11.14,df=1,p<.001). Independent t-tests indicated the two groups did not differ across subscale or overall RSIPAS scores after a Bonferroni correction, with the exception of the behaviors subscale, in which field instructors reported higher frequency (t[445]=2.70,p=.007).

 

Conclusions and Implications: While there are standing expectations that RS discussion be included in social work education, including field education, it is difficult to translate classroom-learned skills related to this topic without engaging field settings and instructors. The results from this study provide a foundation of understanding current field instructors’ views and integration of RS in practice, from which trainings may be developed and evaluated.