Empowering Students to Empower Others: A Community-Based Field Practicum

Abstract

Students are unable to empower their clients to the extent that they themselves are empowered. In afield practicum based in a low-income community it was found that students' sense of empowerment depended on the kind of feedback they received from others. The critical source of feedback was the field instructor. A field setting with limited structural supports has proved to be liberating to the majority of students but overwhelming for some.