Building Policy Practice Skills into MSW Field Education

Background and Purpose:  Policy practice is a critical component of social work education and is particularly necessary to achieve social justice.  This presentation reports on a project that aimed to build more policy practice skills into MSW education.  The project had two aims and also incorporated a focus on the intersection of race, poverty and ethnicity: (1) Training, support and consultation to field instructors related to helping students acquire skills in designing and advocating for policy solutions; (2) Engaging all MSW students in their foundation placement in a policy practice assignment connected to the policy environment relevant to their internship site.  Project activities included:  (1) Forming and utilizing an advisory committee of faculty, field education staff, advisors, and field instructors; (2) Ongoing communication to students, field instructors, and advisors about the project grant, key activities, and resources; (3) Developing of a template to be used by students and field instructors as an addendum to the learning contract and a process form for the student to describe the completed project; (4) Re-designing the Seminar in Field Instruction module to be used in training of field instructors; (5) Collection and posting of web resources (websites, listservs, policy practice documents) on the project website; (6) A series of four webinars on policy content and policy practice. 

Method: The project was implemented over one academic year.  Four sources of data were used to evaluate the project:  (1) pre/post learning outcome data related to policy practice competency; (2) knowledge measure of policy practice administered after participation in the Seminar in Field Instruction (using a comparison group); (3) review of student products submitted at the end of the project; and (4) qualitative interviews with stakeholders. 

Results:  Learning outcome data demonstrated gains in policy practice competency.  Review of student products and stakeholder interviews identified strong interest and support for the project with some areas of confusion requiring additional attention.  Specific findings included:  (1) the importance of building policy content into all social work settings (not just policy-specific settings); (2) the need to de-mystify “policy practice” for field instructors by offering concrete suggestions for placement sites; (3) the need for clear communications with students regarding the linkage of field-based policy practice activities with social justice; (4) greater emphasis on understanding existing data to use for projects; and, (5) identification of other program-based supports (e.g., technology) to support the ongoing initiative.

Implications: Policy practice is a core element of the social work profession and it is fundamental to furthering an equitable distribution of societal resources and achieving social justice.  This project was successful in building capacity for more robust policy expertise among MSW students.  Implications of findings can provide guidance to other programs to replicate the project.  Outcome data will also be used to revise project activities for the future and to plan for sustainability.  Other steps include:  (1) building additional policy focus into advanced year placements; (2) integrating the activities more closely with policy coursework; (3) creating an ongoing project library of resources and webinars.