Social Work Education and Clinical Learning: Yesterday,Today, and Tomorrow

Social Work Education and Clinical Learning by Simpson, Williams, and Segall is a welcome and timely statement about the nature of clinical social work and its implications for educational curricula. The authors took on an awesome task. Educating students for clinical practice is increasingly more daunting than it has been previously and is in considerable disarray, if not a state of crisis. In addition to amplifying and expanding some of the major points the authors make, this discussion considers where we have been, where we are, and where we are going. It describes the educational landscape today, which the author views as bleak with respect to its preparation of students for clinical social work practice. In keeping with clinical social work’s inclusive definition that encompasses a broad knowledge base, diverse practice roles, and a wide range of interventions, this discussion emphasizes the importance of numerous unifying themes that help to distinguish clinical social work from other approaches or from the use of a fragmented assemblage of techniques. The paper considers the role of evidence-based practice and makes some suggestions about future emphases in clinical social work. It concludes with a call to alter the educational landscape.     

Educating for Practice in the Chicano Community

This paper conveys one perspective on the development and implementation of a training curriculum designed within a framework of knowledge, values, and skills essential for compatible and complementary social work practice in the Chicano community. It reflects the theoretical foundations upon which the Chicano Training Center is constructing a continuing education program for social service and mental health personnel. Curriculum content areas and emphases, as well as training modalities, are discussed and suggested as possible means for educating practitioners to better understand and serve Mexican Americans. The development of bicultural practice models in service delivery systems is also stressed.     

Social Work Education without Walls: Ethnography as a Lens for Transformative Learning

A call for innovation in social work has been put forth to address our society’s greatest problems. This call applies to social work education, which encompasses multiple functions including teaching, research, and practice. Yet, innovation in social work is constrained by the limits of current social work approaches and methods. Increasing social work’s impact in the real world requires illuminating the complexities of reciprocal forces between human lives and the environment. Understanding such complexities incorporates spatial and interdisciplinary approaches, such as ethnography. Ethnography, as method and metaphor, is a lens for transformative learning in social work education: It is the message. Ethnography illuminates real-world complexities and deepens social work education through its core contributions: methodological holism, methodological engagement, and methodological comparison. In deepening social work education, ethnography renders visible salient links in social work’s field of dialectics, invoking the systems perspective. Yet, ethnography extends beyond and expands on the systems perspective, emphasizing engaged integration. Engaged integration of social work’s dialectics forwards the discourse about the profession’s identity. Thus, ethnography is a tool for advancing knowledge and promoting transformative learning in social work education.     

Social Constructivist Practice with Youth

Social constructivism is an important and creative perspective for helping social workers in their work with adolescents. This paper demonstrates how theoretical orientations and clinical techniques that adhere to a social constructivist perspective can be integrated with the developmental realities of adolescence to provide effective social work interventions. Fundamental assumptions are discussed and are related to problems of practice. Case studies are utilized to demonstrate social constructivist principles in clinical work with adolescents.     

The utility of the DSM-5 Z-codes for clinical social work diagnosis

ABSTRACT

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is the standard reference text used by social workers for diagnosing mental disorders. The social work profession has always had an uneasy relationship with the DSM, but for 33 years there was an opportunity to note a client’s psychosocial stressors on Axis IV. With the publication of the DSM-5, however, the multiaxial diagnostic system was abandoned, and many social workers are concerned that this change limits their ability to provide comprehensive diagnoses. The purpose of this article is to consider an expanded use of Z-codes as one way to continue including social work’s psychosocial perspective on human functioning in the diagnostic process.     

Social Work and Interprofessional Education in Health Care: A Call for Continued Leadership

A report from the Interprofessional Education Collaborative and another from the Institute of Medicine cite working as part of interdisciplinary teams as a core proficiency area for improving health care. This article discusses the core competencies of interprofessional education and the essential role for social workers as leaders and facilitators of this practice. Educators will learn how to help students discover the knowledge, skills, and attitudes for successful interprofessional work. Specifically, this article has the following objectives:

1. Discuss essential elements of effective interprofessional practice;

2. Present exemplars of interprofessional education involving social work;

3. Identify the roles for social work in leadership, education, and practice in interprofessional education.

     

Assessing Social Work's Contribution to Controlled Studies of Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment

ABSTRACT

Findings from a review of social work's contribution to the adolescent substance abuse treatment outcome literature between 1990 and 2001 are presented. Social work involvement in adolescent substance abuse treatment was evaluated through a computerized bibliographic search of medical and social science databases and by a manual search of 13 core social work journals. Results indicate that social work has contributed little to knowledge development in adolescent chemical dependency treatment. Investigators affiliated with a department or school of social work accounted for three of 15 controlled treatment outcome studies. Only one report was published in a core social work journal. Efforts to develop clinical guidelines in this important practice domain will founder until a sufficiently directive body of practice-relevant research accumulates to guide evidence-based substance abuse treatment for adolescents.     

The Clinical Aspects of Case Management and its Role in Graduate Field Education

In graduate social work education, faculty advisors together with practice instructors can improve social work students' skills to link the practical aspects of ‘work responsibilities’ to the clinical underpinnings of case management. Often students are taught the direct services (case management) with a view solely focused on the practical aspects of care, and this curtails the students' opportunity to learn the clinical interventions that exist in all components of social work: to identify, understand and apply clinical dynamics to presenting problems. The authors discuss their work in addressing case management from a clinical perspective with MSW students and recommendations for its inclusion in graduate social work programs.     

An Interview with Joyce Edward: Exemplary Clinician, Advocate, and Scholar

Over the years, noteworthy social workers have been interviewed for the Clinical Social Work Journal. This article features an interview with Joyce Edward who is recognized for her many extraordinary contributions to clinical social work. Joyce has co-written or co-edited three exceptional books for the social work clinician, she has been an esteemed teacher and a vocal activist for quality mental health care. In this interview Joyce reflects on family influences, her work as a social caseworker, the psychoanalytic luminaries with whom she trained, her concerns about the clinical education of today's social work students, and finally, her perspective on managed mental health care.     

Outcomes focused user involvement in social work education: applying knowledge to practice

Abstract

This paper discusses an innovative approach connecting service user and carer involvement (SUCI) in social work education to social work practice. The research team, comprised service users, carers, social work students and module leader, worked collaboratively democratising the research process. At the University of Dundee, a core social work module facilitates students to spend 15 h with a service user and/or carer (host) gaining a unique insight into their everyday lives. During this time, hosts and students discuss two policy practice questions, responses to these questions are generating annual qualitative data, with study findings being disseminated at local and national level. The experiential learning students acquire from spending time with their host becomes the site of knowledge creation through involvement that is applied to practice. This paper reports on the narratives emerging from the longitudinal data (2012–2015, n = 90) on the changing landscape of social care in Scotland and the dissemination of project findings. We explore the intersection where the voices of service users and carers, student learning and social work practice coalesce. A model of outcomes focused SUCI is introduced as a template for meaningful, sustainable and outcomes-focused SUCI in social work education.     

Assessing Social Work's Contribution to Controlled Outcome Studies in the Alcohol Dependence Treatment Literature

ABSTRACT

Alcohol use disorders are among the most prevalent and disabling conditions encountered by social work practitioners. Although a substantial body of research findings has accrued evaluating the effectiveness of available alcohol dependence treatments, few efforts have been made to assess the contribution that social work has made to this database. Thus, this study examined the contribution of social work to the alcohol dependence treatment outcome research literature over the past half-century. Controlled investigations of alcohol dependence treatments published between 1950 and 2000 were analyzed by publication outlet type and primary author's professional affiliation. Computerized bibliographic searches of medical and social science databases were conducted and a manual search of 13 core social work journals to identify controlled studies of alcohol dependence interventions. Results indicate that researchers affiliated with schools or departments of social work as well as studies contained within core social work journals have contributed little to knowledge development, with respect to controlled studies, in the alcohol dependence treatment literature. Greater social work involvement in chemical dependency research would contribute much to current efforts to promote evidence-based practice and clinical guideline development in this important practice area.     

Property,wealth, and social change: Piketty as a social science engineer

This paper applauds the vision and originality of Piketty's Capital and Ideology. We draw attention to the distinctive methodological perspective which he adopts, which we liken to call “social science engineering.” This allows a problem oriented perspective on long‐term global social change which sidesteps siloed disciplinary debates in social science and history about the meaning of modernity, the rise of capitalism, the formation of social groups, and the primacy of nations. We bring out how his theory of property permits him to take forward his overarching insight that economic growth leads to wealth accumulation. This, therefore, challenges long standing sociological perspectives by insisting that modernity is a conservative, rather than a revolutionary and transformative process. We build on this essential contribution by noting some areas where his work can push forward even further, notably that his focus on shifting relativities obscures qualitative historical changes, and more particularly means his analysis of the 20th century is not as provocative as that of the 19th century.     

Body Dysmorphic Disorder and Its Significance to Social Work

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a relatively common and often severe psychiatric disorder in which an individual has an excessive preoccupation with an imagined or slight defect in his or her appearance (American Psychiatric Association in Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. American Psychiatric Association, Washington, 2000). Despite its prevalence in the United States and worldwide, many health care and mental health professionals, including social workers, are unfamiliar with BDD. In fact, BDD is virtually absent from the social work literature and no authors or researchers have considered BDD from a social work perspective. The purpose of this article is to inform social workers about the seriousness, prevalence and treatment challenges of BDD, and to highlight its significance to social work practice and research. A clinical case presentation illustrates an example of how BDD may present in practice and the value of addressing it from a biopsychosocial perspective.     

Spirituality-Based Social Work Values for Empowering Human Service Organizations

Abstract

This paper is based on three premises: (1) Spirituality is seen as an asset from which the client system draws its innate strengths to empower itself, (2) Just as it is important for social work clients to build on individual spiritual strengths to overcome personal challenges, it is equally crucial for human service organizations to implement spirituality-based professional values in organizational contexts, and (3) Spirituality issues need to be examined from the perspective of macro social work education. Based on these premises, the goal of this paper is to construct a conceptual framework that links spirituality-based social work values to empowerment strategies that can be employed in macro social work practice. Adding to the existing dimensions of social work knowledge relating to spirituality, this paper examines spirituality as empowerment issues. Also, the author explores spirituality-centered social work skills, focusing on organizational management and leadership skills.     

A Case-based Collaborative Learning Model for Teaching Advocacy

Social work graduate school programs focusing on clinical practice have traditionally attended less to the profession's advocacy role. Masters-level clinical social work students, therefore, may not receive adequate training to understand their roles in advocating for or against policies that directly impact their practice. This article proposes a collaborative learning model called ‘Advocacy Week’, which prepares students for a statewide NASW-sponsored Advocacy Day. Using case presentations prepared in collaboration with clinical and policy social work faculty, aspiring clinical social work practitioners are exposed to the relevance of advocacy. Preliminary findings suggest that graduate students exposed to this model become aware of their advocate role as part of their clinical practice, a knowledge which has implications for social work education.     

Learning about child protection

Where do social workers acquire the knowledge they use in child protection work? What opportunities exist for them to access and use research? Should they bother? This paper addresses these questions using information provided by twelve local authority social workers involved in child protection work and findings from relevant research.

In a learning and work climate which appears not to encourage interest in research findings or knowledge from books generally, the paper considers both how knowledge from research might best be brought to the attention of busy workers and what are the necessary conditions for workers to develop and use knowledge in child care and protection practice.     

Otherness and empathy—implications of Lévinas ethics for social work education

This paper examines the concept of otherness in Lévinas’ ethics and raises related issues regarding the limits of empathy on philosophical grounds. This study also identifies and discusses a number of linguistic, social and cultural barriers that can establish such limits on practical grounds. This paper raises various considerations for social work educators teaching empathy. Such considerations suggest that social work educators could adopt a stance of ‘understanding and not understanding’ and a dialectical approach in using knowledge and skills. Furthermore, this study challenges the common assumption that empathy leads to compassionate action. Apart from empathy, moral commitment is necessary to engage in such action. This article discusses such moral commitment in relation to Lévinas’ notions of face and responsibility that place ethics before knowledge. Hence, the present study brings the attention of social work educators back to the importance of nourishing virtue and the moral character of students.     

Narcissism and the Social Work Response

Abstract

This paper reflects on and discusses the relationship between social work knowledge and practice in the context of work with narcissistically-oriented clients. Two subtypes of narcissism postulated in the literature are discussed in relation to the pattern of narcissistic internal claims about self and associated relational expectations. Key messages for social workers are that greater knowledge of the dynamics of narcissism may lead to: accepting and adapting practice based on the idea that narcissistic dynamics have a certain intentionality; applying empowerment models more carefully with this group; better understanding of how to effectively engage clients without reinforcing strong narcissistic tendencies or “results”; and protection of social workers' wellbeing by being able to identify and understand how narcissistic dynamics impact in practice situations. Social workers are urged to critically reflect on and to develop deeper, social work-specific, understandings of personality psychology in the interests of greater practice effectiveness.