Integrating Policy to Strengthen Clinical Practice: How MSW Programs Can Make Policy Relevant for Clinical Students

Background

Policy and macro skills are recognized as core competencies for social work students, and thus, a required part of social work curriculums. While research has shown ways that teaching policy can increase students’ interest in policy and help to identify relevance (e.g. Lim et al, 2018), students often consider policy practice as separate from direct practice with clients. Thus, Weiss-Gal (2016) advocates for research that examines ways for students to engage in policy as part of their direct practice. Ritter (2013) argues for conceptualizing policy courses as practice courses, and this study examined an advanced policy coursed designed to be a practice course for clinically focused students. This study examined how social work students see policy as integrated into clinical practice, the skills needed to participate in policy practice, and whether a course can increase awareness, interest, and confidence for integrating policy into clinical practice.

Methods:

This study draws from pre and post surveys and focus groups for two years of the Advanced Year Policy course. This was a required course for students in a clinical specialization, with 60.7% of students in the Advanced Standing Track after completing a BSW. 42 students completed both the pre and post survey that had both close and open-ended questions, including questions on the relevance of policy to their field placement; their confidence in advocating at the micro, mezzo and macro level; and policy skills and knowledge at students saw as important for clinical practice. Students also participated in a focus group at the end of the semester and then a second focus group four months later to describe how they have used this course in their field placement. Due to the smaller sample size, analysis primarily focused on themes from qualitative data, including open-ended survey questions and focus group data.

Results:

Students identified policy as relevant in both pre and post-post survey. However, students discussed gaining more confidence in advocacy, but this increased confidence was often at a micro advocacy level compared to a mezzo or macro level. Students described key lessons and practice applications that they saw as important for their work with clinical practice. Students also described reasons for less confidence at the mezzo or macro level and other barriers, including less of an opportunity to practice policy skills in their field placement and previous experiences with policy and policy courses in their foundation year or BSW.

Conclusion

Countering the challenge that students often see policy and direct practice as separate, findings showed not only that students identified policy as relevant but also how policy skills could strengthen their clinical practice. This presentation discusses the importance of a second course that moves beyond foundation competencies, skills that clinical-focused students felt were important for integrating policy and advocacy into their practice, and key lessons for MSW policy education.