Intervention Research Supporting Lgbtq Students in Field

Over the past 15 years, social work scholars have been investigating the unique needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) social work students in their field placement experiences. Researchers have conducted qualitative interviews with small samples of LGBTQ students (Diehm, 2004 Fairclough, Bernard, Fletcher & Ahmet, 2012; Hylton, 2005; Messinger, 2004, 2007; Newman, Bogo, & Daley, 2008), heterosexual field instructors (Messinger, 2007), and LGBTQ field instructors (Newman, Daley, & Bogo, 2009). Case studies of a gay male student in Hong Kong (Chung 2008) and a gay male faculty liaison facilitating a sexual minority student supervision group in the US (Satterly & Dyson, 2008) have also contributed to the literature. Large mixed-method surveys with LGBTQ students (Craig, McInroy, Dentato, Austin, & Messinger, 2015) built upon earlier surveys of social work faculty and administrator perceptions of student needs (Martin et al., 2009). All of these scholars suggest resources, policies, and practices that could enhance LGBTQ students’ comfort, knowledge, and skills, but they make no effort to implement and study the effectiveness of these recommendations. Following an intervention research model (Rothman & Thomas, 1994), problem analysis should be followed by interventions in this area.

The roundtable session will discuss current intervention research approaches to addressing LGBTQ students’ needs. The panelists will begin by outlining the latest research on LGBTQ student needs, identifying the shared recommendations for change, and follow this review with specific approaches to intervention and evaluation. The first panelist will discuss analysis of the effectiveness of intentional queer supervision, in which social work field instruction of LGBTQ students is led by an LGBT or Q social work professional, on student performance. The second panelist will examine the implementation of training for LGBTQ students and field instructors on managing microaggressions and the impact of this training on the students’ feelings of efficacy. The third panelist will consider the use of practice simulations for LGBTQ students to practice identity disclosure, microaggression management, and working with LGBTQ clients with intersectional identities. The fourth panelist will discuss purposefully pairing LGBTQ-friendly agencies and supervisors with LGBTQ students. The final panelist will explore the potential of identifying and implementing professional standards for social work practice with LGBTQ populations, which include suggestions for practice as an LGBTQ practitioner. 

Our goal is to stimulate discussion about possible interventions to improve social work field education for LGBTQ students, highlighting strengths and weaknesses of these different intervention strategies, approaches to the evaluation of effectiveness, and the ability to prove validity and generalizability for these studies.