- I think that, I know I asked a lot of you to be here
much of the day on a Sunday.
And I was telling somebody a little bit beforehand
that we used to do field orientation
in week seven, just before annual conference.
And what we have found is that that's really too late.
That many of your agencies are already calling you,
they're already giving you paperwork to fill out.
And that it will help orient you, I think,
to the rest of the summer, to have a better sense
of where you're headed in the field.
It's gonna help you organize your reading
and your thinking and kind of focus yourselves.
And I think it's also nice to have a chance
to meet other people who are going
to your geographic area.
And as you'll do later this morning,
to meet in small groups with other folks
going into the type of setting that you're going to.
And to have a chance to talk with people
who have worked in those settings,
supervised in those settings,
who can give you some guidance about
what is it like to be a social worker
in those particular kinds of units?
So you have already met me.
I'm Carolyn du Bois.
I'm the director of field here
and just very quick self-introduction.
I graduated from here in 1976,
which is now an appallingly long time ago.
And I then went to work at Clifford Beers in New Haven,
which was my second-year field placement
from Smith, so that worked sometimes.
And then worked at the college counseling service at UMass
and have been teaching here since 1985,
also an appallingly long time ago.
But have a strong allegiance to the place.
I'm kind of fond of the program here.
I teach second year practice
and I am very fond of our students.
And it's wonderful to get to see you in person.
I have telephone and paper relationships,
kind of, at this point, with all of you,
and it's awfully nice to put names and faces together
and to get to meet you.
We have a really wonderful field team here
that I want to introduce you to.
You met Sam and Marybeth outside.
Are you guys out there, and can you hear me?
Yeah, they're going to ignore me.
Sam Sharf is an administrative assistant for field.
Marybeth is--
There's Sam!
Say hi, Sam.
Make Marybeth stick her head in too.
Marybeth!
Stick your head in!
There's Marybeth (laughs)
who's our systems coordinator for field.
And these two women manage,
I can't tell you how many pieces of information data.
It's a 700-person system.
I did the math one time and looked to see.
We have 250 students out in the field
at any given point in over a hundred agencies
and that generates over 100 supervisors
and 200 training directors.
It's a huge system.
And we honestly just could not keep the boat afloat
without the hard work you guys do.
So we thank you both.
And they're your go-to people too.
They'll answer a lot of questions for you along the way.
Let me also introduce to you formally,
Katelin Lewis-Kuelin, who is
our associate director of fieldwork here.
Katelin got her MSW here in 2000.
She finished a two-year cycle
analytic training program after that,
a two-year advanced supervision certificate
program here at Smith,
and has 14 years clinical experience
in agency-based outpatient and inpatient
hospital settings.
She was at Mills Peninsula at Smith Agency
where she was the training director for many years.
And she joined us in December of 2012
as a full-time associate director.
I was thrilled.
And now our newest member
is Maria del Mar Farina,
our new assistant director of fieldwork.
I'm so happy to have a team.
And Maria del Mar Farina joined us
just this last month, but has been Smith-affiliated
for a very, very long time.
Maria got her MSW here at Smith in 1998.
That MSW not being enough,
she then went on and got an MBA.
I don't know--
(laughs)
- What was I thinking?
- [Carolyn] I don't know.
But there she was.
And she's now a PhD candidate here at Smith.
Has taught here at Smith for many years
as well as at Westfield State.
And so she's got many years, as you can do the math,
of working both in private practice
and again in agency-based settings.
Has served as a supervisor for Smith
in two different settings
and has taught, as I said, a number of courses here
including the second year clinical practice course.
We're gonna talk a good deal today about
the structure of field.
We want to give you kind of a broad overview at this point.
And let me tell you a little bit about
what the day will look like.
We're gonna be meeting with you now
for a little bit over an hour
and walking through the basics of what field looks like,
the structure of field placements,
a little bit about the assignments.
I don't want you feeling like you have to
frantically take notes,
'cause Maria's gonna tell you where you find all of this.
These guys are so much more organized
and computer savvy than I am.
I've joked with some of you.
My daughter says, "You know, Mom, you crawl into the 1970s
"and then applaud yourself for being there."
They have been--
Which is kind of true.
These guys have been great about getting stuff up online.
So don't feel as we go through this,
you have to frantically take notes.
Everything we tell you is available to you in print.
So we're gonna talk with you.
We're gonna have a good chunk of time
for questions and answers,
and then at 10:30 our student org leaders
are gonna come and talk with you.
You already know we have a very strong
student organization here at Smith.
And there are elected representatives
to each of the academic sequences
that you folks elect.
And so there are people elected by the student body
to serve as a liaison with us in the field department.
Those folks are gonna come and talk with you at 10:30.
We're then gonna take a break.
And then at 11:00, you're going to go
into small groups that are organized
around the kinds of settings that you're going into.
And that's on the front of your label.
If you have any questions, you give us a holler.
And the room number is on it as well.
All of the small groups are gonna
meet here in the campus center.
At 12:00, we then go, come back upstairs here
and there'll be a picnic box lunch
and you can go outside and
enjoy a picnic outdoors.
We have a good time.
And then at 1:00, come back to this room
and we will meet with Sarah McCabe
who is an NASW safety trainer,
and will be talking about safety in the field.
We've been extraordinarily lucky at Smith.
We've not had students encounter
significant safety problems in the field,
but part of how you keep that from happening
is to make sure everybody's really well trained
and that you know how to go into lots of different
kinds of settings and keep yourselves safe and well.
Okay.
We had originally thought we would do the lunch
around your geographic areas,
but we know that you've already
done that twice through orientation.
So you're welcome to meet with your area crew
if you want to.
If you've had enough of that and
you wanna go meet new people, new buddies,
feel free to just have your lunch
either outside or really anywhere in the building.
I would like people just to see
who's going where, though, if we could.
So would you mind if everybody who's going to Seattle
either stands or gives a wave.
There's our Seattle crew.
Okay.
So that way, at least if you haven't met each other yet,
you're laying eyes on each other.
How about Northern California?
That's gonna be a big crowd.
That's a big crew.
(laughs)
I go out to Northern California to do this recruiting thing.
They call it Smith West out there in San Francisco.
We've got a good sized crew going to L.A.
Any of our L.A. folks?
I know you've met each other in a small group already.
So there you are.
Thank you.
Colorado?
Okay, good.
Some folks heading that way.
Let me think what else.
I think there's one sole first year going to Texas.
- [Audience Member] Yay, Texas!
- Yay, Texas!
But here you are, back there.
So maybe some of you want to think about Texas
for your second year placements.
We've got great placements there, actually.
Let's just kind of quickly hit New England.
Massachusetts?
That's gonna be a big crowd.
Woo hoo!
So you have not all laid eyes on each other,
'cause that was too big a crowd for one group.
So that's Massachusetts.
We've got Connecticut.
Good size crowd.
Got a handful going to Rhode Island.
Alright, say hello to each other.
There you go.
Vermont?
A lot of Vermont people going up to the retreat.
Okay.
This way, if you want to have
lunch with each other, you can.
It's not required.
New York?
There's a good size crowd.
Okay.
North Carolina?
Alright.
Georgia?
One person in Georgia!
Alright, so here you are.
Now think about Georgia for your second year.
Georgia and Texas.
Don't let people sit there alone.
You will have other second-year people there.
You're not gonna really totally be alone.
So that's good.
What have I missed?
- [Katelin] D.C. and Maryland.
- D.C. and Maryland!
Okay, there you are.
Anybody I missed?
Any lone soul out there? - [Voiceover] Pennsylvania!
- [Carolyn] Pennsylvania, how silly of me.
Thank you.
We got all the crew going to Pennsylvania.
Thank you, Nicholas.
It's early.
Alright, anybody else?
Any other major states?
Okay.
So you get to see who's going where.
I'm going to leave it now to Maria,
who's gonna show you how to organize
this high-tech stuff.
And thank you again for coming.
- Alright, so--
- [Carolyn] You have to talk loud.
- I know, I have to talk loud,
which is something that I never do
if you take a class with me.
Alright, so this is a new development for us
and a way to try to remain really accessible to you
and convey information to you in a different way.
So I've sat in many orientations,
and then when I've walked out, I've been,
"Okay, so when was that due again?"
So what you will find in this Moodle course,
and all of you should have access to this.
If you don't see it, then please let us know.
Our various links.
One of them is just the link that I've passed
that will bring you to the list of summer
field events and dates.
And an important think while you're also away
is that MSW calendar.
And we'll see how--
So, this will list for you all of the various events
and it will give you througout the year.
Just to give you a flair.
Now, if you haven't logged into this website,
I would highly encourage you to do so.
We're gonna be talking about various forms and reports,
and so in the field reports form that you can see,
(audience member sneezes) you're gonna--
Bless you!
You're gonna see a selection for students
where you're directed to the guidelines
for the field internship, which is one document
that we want you to keep referring to.
Your learning plan contract,
you're gonna be talking with your supervisor
at the very beginning.
And you also have access to other information
that is available to your faculty field advisor
as well as to supervisors in the field.
So in here, you will also be able to
see the first mid-year final evaluation
that you will be using with your supervisor
as well as the final evaluation.
Now, other areas that we're excited.
One of them is where to begin.
The quick reference guide.
So when you walk out of here,
if you have questions about, what is the date
in which I report to my internship?
This is where you can find it.
In addition to that, and again,
you will see in some areas coming soon.
Katelin and I and Carolyn are thinking about,
okay, so, what are the questions that
we hear from you most often?
To kind of compile them together
and put them here, so that you can first look in there
and certainly contact us with any additional questions.
A very important folder here
that we're very excited about
is the placement description form.
So I don't know how many of you got a chance to look.
They're arranged by state, your geographic location,
and this is just descriptions from the previous interns.
So it gives you an idea of what their
experience was like, and certainly they're
available for you to talk with
and ask additional questions
if you feel that an aspect of what they talked about
was interesting and you would like
to know a little bit more.
But this is a site that we're building.
So you will see again, the integrated seminars.
I know we're going to be covering that today.
But as we go, you're gonna be seeing different headings.
So the next heading that we're working on
is actually aimed towards supervision.
How to think about supervision.
How to make the most out of supervision.
So throughout the academic year,
we're gonna be posting different resources for you.
Resources, so different articles,
different maybe links to websites
for you to review and continue to integrate
in your learning there in the field.
Okay?
- [Carolyn] Did you talk about the guidelines?
- The guidelines?
I think I did, but I can go back out.
Is that good?
- [Carolyn] The guidelines actually are gonna all be posted
on this course and online.
And it's a huge document.
It's about 120 pages of everything
you ever wanted to know about field and then some.
But it will be a reference point around policies,
procedures, as well as all the assignments.
And we are updating them now for the '14-15 year.
So those will be up and active probably in about 10 days.
Okay?
Thank you, Maria.
- [Maria] Thank you.
- [Katelin] Okay, I'm gonna start by talking
about the placement process
of what you've already been through
and what you're kind of going through.
And then move to more of the nuts and bolts
of the clinical field program.
Just wanna make sure,
can everyone hear me in the back?
Great.
Louder, okay.
That's good.
So here's some background for your class.
You're 124, I don't know if you knew that.
That's your class number, 124 folks.
You're going into over 100 agencies.
You're in 13 states plus D.C. plus Canada.
And the types of internships that you're
going to be going into.
You're in schools, you're in hospitals,
you're on adult and adolescent and child inpatient teams,
adult and child and adolescent outpatient teams,
outreach teams, residential treatment facilities,
domestic violence teams, and crisis teams.
There's a huge variety and diversity
of the work that you're all going to be doing.
So the placement process.
You may not know this, but we started back in December
securing the training slots that you
are all going into in September.
So for us, it's about a nine month process.
So we started this process before
many of you even applied to the program.
And the matching process was done
by the field placement committee.
The members of that committee are your
field directors here and members of faculty
who teach practice.
And what we did is we carefully reviewed your materials,
we looked at your experience, your learning needs,
special considerations that you were asking from us,
and then we made a match based on the agency's
training requirements and the agency's needs.
All of your resumes were sent out in advance
to the clinical supervisors and the director of training
of that agency.
You were then confirmed and selected for that slot.
So I wanna just put that out there,
what an intentional process it is.
That they're confirming it, we're confirming it,
and that's before you even get the e-mail from us
letting you know where you're going.
Okay, so more about those agencies.
You probably know, many of you already,
that internships are becoming increasingly competitive.
More and more agencies are requiring interviews
ahead of time, more and more agencies are requiring
either on-the-phone or face-to-face confirming meetings.
And many of you in the room have already
gone through that process.
So we thank you if you were one of the,
one of the students that we had to contact ahead of time
to say, actually, there's an interview
as part of this internship.
And if you're one of the lucky ones
who didn't have to interview,
I just want you to be thoughtful
about going into your agency setting
where there might be an intern cohort
with social work students from other schools.
Most likely, those students had to interview
for the exact same training slot that you didn't have to.
And if you didn't have to interview this year,
the majority of you are probably going to be interviewing
for second year field.
So this is something that we're very aware of.
We're in communication all the time
about how we can streamline this process.
We have interview preparation materials
actually on our Moodle course as well
to help you in that process.
(Audience member asks muffled question)
That's a great question.
So the reason why Smith placements traditionally
did not require an interview is really
based on our reputation,
based on the longstanding affiliations
and relationships we have with agencies
that we frontload so much ahead of time
in terms of phone calls.
We have relationships with these people.
We have often in our agencies
a long history of really successful students in those spots.
So we've been lucky that we haven't had to interview.
But the climate is changing.
And those relationships don't, for a lot of folks,
mean that we don't have to go through the same process
that other students in other schools have to go through.
So we also know because many of you have had interviews
that you've been contacted at this point by your agency.
So, and we also know that at this day and age
that first initial contact may not be
your clinical supervisor anymore.
It may be a representative form the HR department
with an e-mail that can be quite overwhelming
because it's got a list of like 20 requirements
and pieces of paperwork, and screenings,
and background checks that you have to fill out.
So we know this is happening.
We're trying to stay in front of it as much as we can.
But do come to us.
Bring your packet.
If you have any questions, send us an e-mail
of it so we can look at it together.
We have office hours every day
available to work on these kind of issues.
And if you have received an HR packet
and there's a deadline,
I don't mean to increase your anxiety
even more than it already is,
but that deadline is there for a reason.
And we have had a couple students in the past
who were not able to start their internships on time
because they were not able to get their paperwork in.
So some of those background screenings
take more time that you might think.
And you're so immersed and overwhelmed with your academics.
So I get it.
That is the kind of thing like,
you can get to that down the road.
But actually, this is the time that we need
to start working on that.
Why don't we hold questions if that's okay, 'til the end.
Thanks.
So let's say you haven't been contacted by your agency.
What does that mean?
Is that okay?
Absolutely.
Still, the majority of students have not been contacted
because we have what's called annual conference.
This is Friday, July 18th and Saturday, July 19th.
We're gonna have over a hundred agency representatives
here on campus that weekend to meet with you.
They're gonna be in all-day trainings with us as well.
So you'll be receiving an e-mail from the field department
next month with the details
if we know in advance if your agency's gonna be here.
But we already have a time and a date
slotted for that meeting.
It's 3:45 on Friday, July 18th.
Again, we're gonna send you
all the specifics of that.
And for those of you who aren't gonna
get to meet with your supervisor
or agency representative at that time,
I know that well, I was a California student,
so my supervisors weren't able to be here
and come out to the east for that.
We ask that your supervisors call you sometime
that week to start touching base.
So it's normal to not have been in any contact
at this point.
It's, no news is good news.
Okay, so now I'm gonna transition to talking more
about the nuts and bolts of the clinical field program.
As you know, we have an incredibly rich
and rigorous clinical field program.
That's why I would imagine the majority
of you selected Smith,
is because of our field internship program
and the training that it provides.
But just to give you some perspective,
the Council for Social Work Education requires
900 hours in the field to receive your MSW.
We require more than 900 hours,
even in your first year of placement.
So you'll be doing about 960 hours
for your first year placement,
a second 960 hours for your second year field placement,
for a total of 1,920 hours, which is a ton.
It's amazing amount of experience that you'll have
and that will take you far.
It's why we do it, believe in it.
You are also going directly into clinicals,
internships, that many if not most schools
can only use for their second year students.
So these internships are designed to provide
broad based training in direct practice,
advocacy, and case management.
You'll be working with individuals,
families, groups, and communities.
And the first year field is really designed
to provide a grounding in clinical social work
whereas the second year field is gonna be
more of a specialization year.
Now, internship-based learning is incredibly unique.
It's really one of a kind because you're both
going into your agencies as a student,
you're there to learn, and yet,
you're expected to function as a professional.
Your clients need you and depend on you
to function as professionals.
Now, I also want to reassure you after that statement
that the summer curriculum really prepares you well
for being able to make this transition
from being here all summer to going then into the job role.
You've got nine more weeks to be in the place
where you're going to be ready
to go into your field internships
and unlike other schools, you will have completed
almost an entire full year
of clinical social work academics.
You'll have it under your belt
going into your field placement.
So as we've talked about,
the agencies that you're going into are incredibly diverse.
And yes, you will be expected to be integrating
your academic learning and to be coming up with
and thinking psychodynamically and coming up
with psychodynamic formulations
in terms of your work with your clients.
But we wanna be very clear about something.
That does not mean that you're gonna be always
or primarily practicing or intervening with your clients
in a psychodynamic framework.
You're gonna be exposed to a wide diversity
of theoretical orientations and theories.
Cognitive behavioral therapy,
dialectical behavioral therapy,
acceptance commitment therapy,
CBT trauma informed therapy, family systems theory,
mindfulness, depending on your clients,
your supervisors, your agency, you're going to be trained
with many different conceptualization or theoretical models.
And they're all valuable and they're all clinical.
So we really wanna stress that point.
So now I'm gonna talk a little bit about
who's on your field team.
Each student has a primary clinical supervisor.
That person is an MSW.
That person is employed by the agency.
They're your primary teacher
and you are practicing under their license.
And Maria's gonna talk more about
the supervisory role in a few minutes.
You're also gonna be assigned a faculty field advisor.
And you may have heard that already.
People refer to them as FFA.
So we just say FFAs.
And you're probably like, "What on earth is an FFA?"
So your faculty field advisor is either
a resident faculty or an adjunct faculty.
They're hired and trained by us.
They're really your consultant to the learning process.
And during annual conference,
again, July 18th and July 19th,
you'll all be meeting with your faculty field advisor.
So they're gonna talk a lot more, then,
in that first meeting about their role.
But just so you have a sense of who
this person is gonna be in your life
during your eight month internship,
they're gonna be calling you in September
to check in with you when you first get started
to touch base.
They're gonna be coming in person to your agency
in the fall for a three hour visit
with you and your supervisor.
There'll be a second three hour visit
in the late winter and spring.
They're gonna be really important to you
as you explore--
I know this is thinking way ahead--
as you explore second year field.
They're gonna be talking with you and consulting you
around your learning needs for second year field,
and they're gonna be making a recommendation to us
in writing, based on your conversations with them,
about what they think you need
to learn in second year field.
You're also going to be writing monthly narratives to them
and submitting all your field assignments to them,
which Carolyn will talk to you more about.
So you're gonna have a lot of contact with that person.
They're gonna be very important to your learning
and a liaison between the school and your agency.
In addition to your supervisors and your FFA,
you're gonna have one of the field directors
as another support and contact person.
If you're placed in any of the New England states
or New York, I'm gonna be your contact person
and basically if you're placed anywhere other
than the New England states and New York,
Carolyn is gonna be your contact person.
So that way, every--
- She's got the heavier load, though, really.
When you do the math.
- That's true.
So if you look at it, every triad, every student,
every agency, every faculty field advisor
has one contact person.
Structure.
As you know, your field internships are 30 hours a week.
What you might not know is that doesn't include breaks
and typically, you're gonna be there for four days.
It could be five days, but four or five days a week
you'll be there for 30 hours, not including breaks,
and that your schedule is really determined
by your supervisor and the needs of the agency.
You'll also be a half-day in your community project
and there's gonna be a separate orientation on Saturdy
of annual conference, which is gonna go into all the detail
about your community practice project.
Your personal employment,
which we know many of you have additional jobs.
Talk about a full load.
In addition to your life and your family
and being in graduate school,
but your outside employment really has to be
scheduled somehow not to conflict.
Which we know is a lot to juggle.
But it cannot conflict with your field internship hours.
Now, the typical model for supervision is this.
You're gonna have two hours of individual weekly supervision
with your primary MSW supervisor.
Now, in some agencies where the training model
may be more of a group model,
we feel it's clinically more sound
to have a little less
individual supervision, and a lot more group supervision.
So we'll let you know in advance
if your placement has that type of supervisory model.
Now in addition to the individual supervision
and possible group supervision,
you'll be participating in your agency's trainings,
team meetings, weekly rounds, et cetera.
The goal in terms of your client work
is to have 12 to 15 direct client hours a week.
That does not mean when you show up
on September 2nd, that you're gonna have 15 clients
in a caseload ready for you on your desk.
No, it's gonna of course, gradually build over time
in conjunction with your learning
and communication with your supervisor.
But our hope is that you'll be doing
at least 12 hours a week.
That means some individual, some groups,
outreach, milieu.
You know, it's over a variety of roles.
But it needs to be 12, minimally, a week.
The rest of the time, you'll be spent in supervision,
in trainings, doing all that agency paperwork
that you'll be trained on,
and collateral work on behalf of your clients.
So everything that I'm going over, by the way,
is on that quick reference guide for first years
that Maria talked about, that's on our Moodle page.
You also have a hard copy in your folders.
Everything is in a lot more detail in those guidelines, too.
I know I'm going over this really quickly.
So just briefly, in terms of your schedule,
you have three days for professional development
in terms of conferences, those need to get approved
ahead of time by your supervisor.
All the vacations are posted
on the academic master calendar,
so take a look at that schedule ahead of time
so you know when you are to have your vacations.
And if you need any alterations to that schedule,
make sure you're in communication with your supervisor
and your FFA about that.
If the agency is closed for religious observances day,
we don't expect you to make up that day,
but you are allowed an additional two days
permitted for observation of religious holidays,
again, let your supervisor know.
Now around illness, just as in any job,
or at any time you've had a professional role,
you are responsible for letting your supervisor know
and to think ahead of time about the impact on your clients.
To think ahead of time about the impact on like,
what clients you have scheduled that day,
and to call your supervisor or contact your supervisor
in advance, in accordance with agency protocol.
So, we've had some students get in hot water
because they texted their supervisor at 2:00 A.M.
We recommend not doing that.
Unless your supervisor says,
"I want you to text me in the middle of the night."
Just do whatever your supervisor says.
If, in terms of absences, you're all grown-ups.
Life happens.
But if it gets to the point where you've missed
about a week of field, which we consider five days,
you really need to let your FFA know right away,
because we need, in conjunction
with your agency and your FFA,
to make a plan for you and make up that missed time.
It's really important that you are there
on a consistent basis, because you are there
on behalf of your clients, and serving your clients.
So let's say you don't miss a single day of field,
which would be amazing.
That does not mean you take an extra week off.
You know, leave early for a week trip
because you didn't use those five days.
It's not like you have five days in the bank.
We just want you to be thoughtful about that.
Okay, I've covered the nuts and bolts.
- Cool.
Thank you.
You can hear me if I talk from here?
Let's take this one question,
then I think we'll hold the rest and do 'em all at once,
'cause others may have some other things.
But this was a question about if you're in a school setting
which has a whole different schedule
and you have school vacation weeks,
what does that do to the clinical hours?
Do you wanna take that one or you want...?
- It's a great question.
We try to, again, be on top of this as much as possible
and let you know with a little asterisk
if we know ahead of time if you have any
alterations into the schedule.
You're right.
Schools typically, because you've got a spring break
that other students are not gonna have,
maybe even depending on where you are,
like an additional February vacation week.
It does really impact your client care
to have so many breaks.
So I know supervisors have really thought about this
and will often talk to you about extending one week.
So you would have like an additional week
that last week in April, and then maybe
be done by like May 1st, depending on
where the dates fall on the calendar.
That's what our students have done typically in schools
is worked one additional week.
Some agencies are more flexible,
some are very particular and rigid.
It depends on the individual situation.
And you'll talk more about that,
all 38 of you who are going to schools, in your small group.
- And you'll know.
You know, the agency supervisor will talk with you
right upfront so you can plan your year.
They won't just pop it on you.
- They should not.
- They should not pop it on you.
Right, okay.
So can you guys hear me if I speak from here?
Good, okay.
So I have the pleasure of telling you
about your responsibilities.
How did I get that one
in the draw here?
Is that what it is?
Yeah, yeah.
So let me talk a little bit, and again,
all this stuff is posted, but tell you a little bit
about the rationale behind some of
the field assignments that you have.
As you hear from Katelin, you can see that field
really is a full-time job.
And you know, you're in graduate school,
and graduate school is a full-time job.
And you really need to plan that you've got the 30
hours a week in your agency, the half-day a week
to community project, and then there really is
another 4-6 hours on top of that
of kind of more academic work
that will go to the four hours.
You're required to do four hours
of reading a week, for example.
So those things come on top of the 30 hours.
So I'm gonna kinda walk through what those assignments are.
And would say upfront that the rationale
for these assignments is really quite deliberate
and thought out.
We know that you get an incredibly heavy dose
of theory in the summer.
You get a ton of coursework, you get a ton of theory.
A lot of the theory that you're gonna get
in this first summer in particular, I think,
can feel very, very abstract,
because you don't have clients you're attaching it to.
So it's abstract.
Or what happens is students read it
and they think it's all about them.
You know, sort of the med school thing that happens
where you're reading about all of these situations.
You don't have clients yet to attach it to
and you're reading and you're saying,
"I have five of the following seven."
Or, this is really my Uncle Pete to a T.
And also the other thing I want to say in all seriousness,
'cause we're sort of laughing a little bit,
'cause you'll do that to yourselves.
You'll read the stuff, and you'll say,
"Oh, my word, this is me."
But I also wanna talk very seriously quickly with you.
Probably many, many, many, many people
who come into social work training
to so having struggled with a difficult history themselves.
And the universe is not divided up
into clients and non-clients, right?
And so I just caution you,
because the other thing that will happen is
many of you have grappled
with mental health issues yourselves.
Many of you have grappled with depression.
Many of you have a trauma history.
Many of you have overcome a substance abuse history.
Many of you got well-trained as social workers
by the time you were eight, 'cause you were in families,
right, that were kind of requiring that of you?
Right?
So I just, so the summer, you read all of this,
you can personalize it, and it's very abstract.
And it's also too much.
In real life, I want you reading as much as you can,
but in real life, you're not gonna get through all of it.
I know that.
The syllabi are huge.
You probably already looked at it and think,
"What on earth are these people thinking?"
So you have four hours of reading a week
and what I encourage you to do,
we leave the practice and the HBSC readings
up all year on Moodle.
You have to do four hours a week.
Go back and re-read stuff from the summer.
There's gonna be stuff that in real life,
I know you didn't read.
There's gonna be stuff that you've read
that made no sense at all,
'cause it made no sense.
But when you're actually working with a client
for whom it's applicable, you'll go back and read it,
and you'll say, "Ah, okay.
"Now this makes some sense to me."
We also have other assignments that are built in
that are really designed to help you
link from the summer academic work
to the work that you're doing in the field.
So they are there and they are on purpose.
So let's talk about what happens weekly.
Weekly, you will write two process recordings
on clients that you are working with in the agency.
Now, most people don't know what process recordings are.
You'll get a feel for them in your practice class,
but they are to the best of your ability,
verbatim accountings of what goes on in the session.
Client said this.
I said that.
Client said this.
I said that.
And you record as much of it as you can
from your memory and put it down.
Put down your thoughts about what might be going on.
But down your reflections on
this worked, this didn't.
I cannot believe that came out of my mouth
and that I said this to the client.
Best you can, an honest accounting.
And you do two of those a week.
They're kind of a pain in the neck in a way,
'cause they take a lot of time,
but they're incredibly fruitful in teaching you.
I think it trains your brain to remember, also,
in a way I don't know how else to teach people.
When you first sit down to do them,
you're not gonna remember very much at all,
so don't freak out about that.
But as you go, you'll get better.
And okay, we're talking about his mother,
and then I know we shifted gears
and then we were talking about this.
What was the link?
How did we get there?
And you'll get better.
Your brain will get better at remembering
and getting that down.
And then you hand it in to your supervisor
and then you get feedback.
And the supervisor might say,
"You know, you really kind of changed the subject here."
or, "What was going on that she, you know,
"threw up and ran out of the room at this point here?"
Whatever.
You know, you'll get specific feedback.
You could have followed her feelings more here.
You got really kind of intellectualized over here.
You'll get that kind of feedback.
So it's incredibly important.
You do two a week.
You keep hold on those during the year,
like in a portfolio or something.
Your FFAs might want to take a spin
through them when they come out.
They're supposed to when they come out to visit you,
which is not just to see that you're doing them, frankly,
but also see that you're getting meaningful feedback
from your supervisor.
'Cause we have to work with supervisors.
The FFA that Katelin was talking with you about
is as much a consultant to the supervisor
as they are to you.
And I find, particularly for students who
are really strong students, who are doing well,
one of the hazards can be that supervisors
go through the process and say,
"Good, good, great.
"Good comment.
"Well done."
And the student's like,
well, you breathe a sigh of relief that, you know,
that it went well, but I joke with people
and say it could have been sunspots for all you know
about why it went well.
You need really explicit feedback.
This comment worked well with this client at this time,
probably because of this reason.
Does that make sense?
So when the FFA asks to look at the process recordings
that your supervisors have responded to,
it's not really just like, they're kind of checking up.
They're also looking to make sure
you're getting meaningful, useful feedback on the work.
I already talked about the readings.
Don't be shy about using stuff that, as I said,
you might have read before.
And that's really what's happening weekly.
The agency, of course, has their stuff about your charting,
but this is field.
On a monthly basis, as Katelin mentioned,
you'll be sending a narrative to your FFA.
And that is usually submitted electronically
and it's meant to be a communication
between you and your advisor
about how the work is going in the field.
Doesn't come back to us in the field department.
Doesn't go in your file anywhere.
It's just a communication
between the two of you about how the learning's going.
What's going well, what's not going so well,
problems or questions you may have,
things that you're feeling stuck about.
And that provides a very good backdrop for them
about when they come out to visit with you in person
to be able to talk with you about
what's going on in the work.
And there's also a monthly kind of statistical report
where you'll show how many clients you saw,
how many hours of supervision,
we ask about the race, gender identity, diagnosis
or presenting problems of the clients
and we do that for a couple reasons.
To make sure you're getting enough of a mix of clients.
We also wanna make sure, and this is, I think,
particularly relevant for,
I think it's particularly relevant, frankly,
for students of color and for people
who have a language capacity in addition to English.
That we wanna make sure that the assignments
that you're getting in the field
are on behalf of your own learning,
and that you're not getting used, frankly.
'Cause I think what can happen
is a student can land in an agency and they say,
"Ah! Great!
"You speak Spanish?
"Here as 12 Spanish-speaking clients who need service."
If that's in keeping with your learning goals,
that's terrific.
If it's that they're using you to provide service
'cause they haven't otherwise staffed their agency,
that's a problem.
Does that make some sense?
So that's why we ask that stuff.
We want to make sure you're getting a good mix
and that it's on behalf of your learning, okay?
So you send that in once a month to your agency,
to your faculty field advisor.
And then there are some one-shot deals that are assignments.
One is the, Maria mentioned the learning plan,
and that's something that's done in October
after you've had your feet on the ground in the agency
for about five weeks.
You'll sit with your supervisor
and come up with a game plan.
Now, Smith, when you look at the guidelines,
you'll see something like 120 learning objectives for field.
Not every single agency is gonna have opportunities
for you to meet every single one of those things.
But we also want you, bossy as we are
about the 120 learning objectives,
we do want you to have some way
to shape the placement around things
that may be of particular importance to you.
And so, we do want you to be able to sit
with your supervisor and say,
"Okay, thank you very much, Smith.
"In addition to these 120 learning objectives,
I'm really interested in--
fill in the blank.
And the supervisor might say,
"Let's get you signed up on this committee over here."
or, "Let's get you signed for a half-day a week
"over on this team there."
You know, so that there's some
individual shaping of the work.
By the time you're a second year student,
you're also gonna have ideas about what you need to learn.
You're gonna say, "I know I'm really good at this,
"and my next learning edge is to
"really concentrate on that."
So the learning plan is just,
what are your individual goals?
And then what kinds of assignments are gonna be in place
to help you tackle them.
Does that make sense?
So that's the learning plan.
Later in the fall, we ask you to do
an issue-oriented report, which is about a
three or four page paper where you write
to your field advisor.
Again, it doesn't come to us.
It's just between the two of you
about something you're struggling with in the field.
Some kind of issue.
And it can be something you're grappling with
with a particular client, or could be something
that you see across the board.
Like you might, for example,
realize that you have a hard time challenging clients,
you know, that you're really good at being supportive
and sweet and nice, and you know when something happens,
you need to confront a client, that's really hard.
So you might write about something
that you're seeing across clients.
Make sense?
And so you'll write about that,
rooting it in your case material
and attaching it to some readings.
There's then an agency,
understanding your agency report,
which is also just designed to help you
talk to the supervisor or the training director
and figure out where the heck you have landed
here in this agency.
You know, is it, how is it funded?
Who's it serving?
How do decisions get made?
Just to help you get the lay of the land,
'cause you're functioning within a system
very enormously.
So that's really designed to be helpful
to you in that way.
And then, what I think students find most helpful
is the major case study, which is due in February.
And that's a pretty good sized assignment
where you write a case, integrate theory,
look at your practice, think about what worked,
think about what didn't work,
and present that to your FFA for feedback.
You're already starting in your
practice classes with a casebook.
You have those?
Those are all real-life cases drawn from the students
who were in the agencies that you're in.
So it's a nice way to teach, 'cause it keeps
it very grounded in real life.
And then, when you write these cases,
they may be selected to be used for teaching.
And it's a great integrative way for you to learn.
And then at the end of the day,
you write this evaluation of the field experience
so that you'll be giving feedback to us.
That does come to Katelin and myself around,
how did it go with supervision, the agency,
your field advisor?
And we read every one of these.
We hire and train and supervise the FFAs
so your feedback is very important to us.
Students worry sometimes about giving feedback
about their supervisors.
Supervisors do see this feedback.
But we'll help you with that.
We want students to be able to give honest feedback.
We'll help you think about the suave way of presenting that.
If you have difficult feedback, we'll help you with that.
And it allows us to work really well, as Katelin says,
with these agencies over time.
Just as you guys are going to be learning
how to be differential with your clients,
you know, it's not a one-size-fits-all.
You'll shape your work with clients based on what they need.
We try to help supervisors think the same way.
That not every student learns in the same way.
And so we try to help them think really carefully about,
this student really needs this from you.
Last year's student learned in a different way.
This year's student learns this way.
How do we shape the supervision
to fit where the student is?
So we focus a lot on your feedback
is very important to us with all of that.
So those are the assignments.
The FFAs do not give written feedback, typically,
to the monthly narratives,
but I promise you, they're reading them, tracking them,
they'll call you if you're raising concerns.
And they use them as a basis for their visits.
The agency assessment or understanding your agency report,
the issue-oriented report, the major case study,
you get written feedback on.
And that doesn't supplant the feedback
you get from your supervisors,
but it's just an additional layer of kind of thinking.
Clinical thinking about the work that you're doing.
And I would just say one word just that links a little bit
back to what Katelin was talking about.
Your supervisor is kind of your day-to-day go-to person.
That's where all your hashing out of what goes
down with your clients is done.
Your FFAs job comes in to really, in some ways,
ensure that you're having the
right kind of learning experience.
That you're moving forward,
the agency's giving you
what they're supposed to be giving you.
It's kind of fun to be an FFA.
You go out and you visit, and you get to think deep thoughts
about what's going on with the work and all.
But it's not the supervision of the case.
It's kind of up in a different level.
Does that make sense?
And if you run into any problems,
you first hash it out with your supervisor,
then with your FFA, and then, if you're still stuck,
you call Katelin or myself, right?
So you just kind of always have steps ahead of you.
Make sense?
Cool.
We don't be talking heads at your for too much longer.
I know you're sitting a long time,
but Maria's gonna talk with you
about supervisory relationship,
which is probably the core of all of this.
So I'm gonna turn to you, Maria,
and then we'll take some questions.
Thanks for your patience.
- So a few words on the supervisory relationship.
I remember sitting where you're sitting
and anticipation of my first internship
and I also remember my anticipation as a supervisor
of my first supervisee from Smith.
So I've been in both ends.
And I would encourage you as you're thinking,
once the classes come to an end
and you have a little bit of room to breathe,
to think about other supervisory relationships you have had.
Some of you may have had social work supervisors
because of your undergraduate experience.
For some of you, this kind of supervision
has not happened before.
But to really reflect about, how do you learn the best?
And I think that sometimes,
and I know that for me, it was this sense that,
"Oh, the supervisor will know."
And he had these magical powers
and that yes, to some extent, supervisors,
through years of training may have a sense,
but how important it is that you also think
as to how you can orient them to who you are,
to what has worked, to what hasn't worked.
That, at the same time, each of you is gonna develop
a very unique supervisory relationship,
even if some of you are placed in the same setting
and are supervised by the same supervisor.
That supervisory relationship is really going to reflect
who you are, what is important, your learning curve.
Not everybody's gonna start at the same point,
but we hope--
Can you hear me?
- [Voiceover] Can you say that a little louder, please?
- Yes.
- [Carolyn] I'm gonna close that outside door, too.
- Okay.
I'll try this.
Better?
Imagine.
So each of you will, at the end,
get to where you needed to get.
All of you are gonna acquire the competencies
that you're there for.
Now, the how, the how that will look,
that is gonna also be defined by the context
in which your internship takes place.
So some of you are gonna be in environments like
school settings, where the function of the social worker,
this is not a primary social work setting.
It's a secondary social work setting
And there are different complexities
as to how do you establish a clinical,
a therapeutic relationship?
What are the limitations?
How are some of the mandates of the schools, for example,
different from the mandates of our own
social work code of ethics?
And I also want you to think about how,
how do you accept feedback?
And because, again, this is a different relationship.
It's a relationship in which a supervisor is the main person
that is gonna orient you,
or be responsible for navigating your orientation process.
He's also a model.
Supervisors try to mentor you
and to also model for you
a professional stance.
But one of the aspects of the supervisory relationship
is to also give you feedback to you
that is helpful for your own professional development
and for the development of clinical skills.
And this is difficult, and it can feel difficult
because there is a certain level of closeness
that over time will evolve.
Part of learning to integrate theory,
part of learning how to establish
a working alliance with a client
is learning also about one's self.
What about you is conducive to hold a client?
What about you, given who that other person is,
makes it sometimes a little bit more challenging?
Not because of you, but what you embody, for example.
And so at a certain point, the supervision will shift
from the initial orientation,
the initial administrative, this is where you go,
these are the forms that you need to fill out,
to a much more complex exploration
through the process recordings
that actually Carolyn has been talking about.
And it does feel vulnerable.
And it's a very humbling process,
for both as a supervisor and as an intern to hear,
"Really, I said that?
"What was I thinking?"
And for your supervisor,
"Okay, how do I approach this so that
"I don't hurt in the process and I can help
"my supervisee really keep an open mind
"while I'm trying to say,
"'Well, perhaps if you would have gone in this direction.'"
So these are difficult conversations.
At the same time, you're also going to be learning about
macro aspects of the social work profession,
and how the macro aspects deeply influence
what happens in the clinical relationship.
In the one-to-one.
And the supervisory relationship is also a place
where you will go back and sometimes after a team meeting
with the larger staff, come back and hopefully have
enough trust and confidence in the relationship
where you can say, "You know, there was something said
"and I didn't quite understand."
So again, how do you lead with curiousity
to get more of a history together broader context
to then say, "Well, you know, I was thinking."
The supervisor and you
will discuss your ongoing process.
So my hope, as Carolyn was saying, is that you don't,
nobody should be getting to any
of the evaluations and be surprised.
It's an ongoing dialogue that at times,
for example, I know that in the supervision process,
at a point, a student may have inadvertently
gotten too many cases all at once.
Initially, there weren't necessarily enough,
and then there were too many.
And so how do you approach the supervisors
and say, "You know, given who I have in my caseload,
"and some of their complexity,
"can we maybe hold off a little bit
"on the number of intakes that I may do?"
Again, some contexts have more flexibility to do this.
In some contexts, the supervisors will say,
"You know, I can't really do this, but let me think
"about other ways to support your learning
"and to get you through this time."
Always remembering that the supervisor,
however difficult sometimes a dialogue may be,
is really your ally, is there to support you.
They wanna get you through, and their commitment
is to mentor new social workers into the field.
I don't know if any of you two want to compliment
anything that I've said.
- So this is gonna be up on our Moodle page.
We're hoping to have a supervision section
as Maria talked about, but just come concrete aspects
to think about ahead of time.
I would encourage you to have a notebook,
a supervision notebook.
I know that sounds really, really basic.
But prepare ahead of time your questions.
Organize yourself so you go into that hour
and you don't, you may feel like a deer in the headlights,
but at least be able to articulate how you feel.
It's gonna impress, I think, your supervisors,
and help for you to come to that relationship
with organized questions.
Take notes if you're a note-taker.
Or communicate some way, if you're not a note-taker,
'cause we all learn differently,
to your supervisor, that you are integrating the material.
And that each supervision moves you a little bit further.
Or you talk about what's stuck,
but I would just again want to encourage
the supervision notebook,
because I think it really could be a helpful tool,
and students have really found them useful.
- And I guess I would just add,
and I'm very glad, Maria, you talked about the vulnerability
in the supervisory relationship.
And I think a lot about how vulnerable we are
when we're learning a profession
that asks us to use ourselves.
And you know I talk to students all the time,
and I say, you know if you were,
and many of you may have worked in a trade
before coming here.
If you're a bricklayer, and I don't know,
the wall comes out crooked or something,
and the supervisor comes by and says,
"You know, if you use a different tool,
"if you use this tool here, it's gonna solve the problem.
"The wall will be straight."
You know, you don't feel particularly personally wounded.
It's like, jeez, that's a helpful tip.
Thanks.
When you're learning to use yourself
and something's going a little wonky in the work,
and you get feedback, it just feels so much more personal.
It is so much more personal,
because you're the tool that you're using, right?
So you feel vulnerable.
Every year, I remember one student coming to me
in the summer and telling me about a problem and I say,
"Well, did you talk with your supervisor about it?"
And he said, "No."
And I said, "Why not?"
And he said, "Because she's my supervisor."
And I said, "Yeah, but like, she's your person."
But that individual student had come to us
never having had clinical supervision before,
and had been in a workplace where
if you screwed up, you know,
your smartest plan was to not let anybody know, right?
And like, don't tell your supervisor.
And in this work, and I say screw up, I don't mean,
relationships with clients are far more resilient
and stretchy and solid, you know, than you think.
You can make a mistake with a client
and you keep that relationship in place,
and you go back the next week and you say,
"You know, I think I missed the boat last week.
"I didn't register how important this was to you."
You go back and you repair,
and the relationship gets stronger.
So we don't wanna make you be afraid of making mistakes.
You absolutely will.
You'll go to supervision.
The supervisor will say,
"Well, maybe it would have been better
"to go down this different path."
You go back in the next week and you say to your client,
"I think I missed the boat.
"I think you were telling me this other thing
"was really the more important thing."
The client will feel heard, reassured, connected,
and life goes on.
So don't be afraid of those glitchy spots.
Don't be afraid to talk about them in supervision.
It's all part of the work that we do.
Nobody's gonna think ill of you for it either.
We don't here.
We don't really have, you know,
a checklist about that.
What's most important is you stay engaged.
- [Maria] And I would say that, in fact,
it is those moments
where you may have felt that something
didn't go exactly as you had hoped,
that that's where the real learning takes place, actually.
It is, and also in the repair, as you mentioned.
Now, another area that I just wanted
to say a little bit about, 'cause I neglected,
was the professional presentation.
So how do you enter this new space
wherever you're gonna be going?
And again, that the supervisor is the person
that when you meet them or in the phone call,
you know, discuss with them, what?
Is there a code?
Is there a dress code?
To think about how in that first day,
how do you enter that environment
both in a professional and in a learning stance?
We're gonna be discussing later today
issues pertaining to safety,
and so again, to discuss with your supervisor,
given the environments that you're gonna be in.
Some of you are going to be going to homes.
It's gonna be in-home therapy for example.
Others are gonna be in different community settings.
So to give some thought as to those aspects,
and to think again about
how do you slowly immerse yourself
into the fabric of the program that you're gonna be in?
That it is a process that initially,
it may be more an observing others.
How do people greet each other?
Where do people go sometimes in the morning?
Does everybody report to a certain place?
Is there an open door policy?
How do you contact your supervisor
if there is a need to debrief a session,
or if you are unsure as to whether or not
a client should really leave, given their presentation.
So those are some of them.
- [Voiceover] Can you say last sentence?
- My last sentence left me.
(laughter)
It's just one of those moments.
I think it was something about,
how do you reach your supervisor
when you're having a session and you're unsure
as to whether or not you should let the client exit,
given the client's presentation.
I did also mention that sometimes,
and I've had this happen with some of my student interns,
and I've had this happen as a clinician,
where I've ended a session and it really felt difficult,
and I really needed somebody else, a colleague to sit with.
And yes, vent and process.
And then as an intern, certainly this will happen.
And so, what is the protocol?
I always say to my supervisees,
"You know, if you had a very difficult session,
"and for example, it's a Friday,
"I don't want you to be going home
"with the worry of, did I do,
"did I say what I needed to say?
"Is this person gonna be okay?
"So please, look for me.
"If I'm not here, this is the
"other person that you can go to.
"But let us help you."
Don't be afraid to reach out.
- Thank you.
Thank you.
And a lot about this professional presentation,
I would also just kind of like to add that
you're learners and you're students,
but your clients, of course, are your clients.
And around the professional presentation,
in kind of dressing a little bit more on the formal side
than you might ordinarily, you know,
lead with a little bit more formality at the beginning
than you might, 'cause you can always done it down.
And I joke with students, I say it doesn't mean you
have to go out and buy a three piece suit or pumps
or pantyhose or whatever,
but do,
(laughter)
but do err on the side of formality.
And then, as Maria says, you keep your eyes open.
You observe, you watch.
How do people dress?
How do they talk with each other?
Et cetera.
The other think I would say is when I've seen students
get into hot water in field, and of course,
if they get into hot water, it lands eventually with me.
Sometimes, what gets students into hot water
is you come out of the summer with these great ideas
and a pretty good head of steam
about how things should be done.
And then,
I know, oftentimes we're right, but you're very new at it.
And so, I've seen students get into trouble
by going into field placements
with, like, grand ideas and challenging the psychiatrist,
you know, at rounds, on their fourth day of placement.
And you can imagine it just doesn't go over well.
And we'll be talking some about this in the smaller groups,
'cause I think every kind of setting has its own culture.
But when Maria says, "Lead with curiosity,"
that's, I think, an incredibly helpful tip.
So it's perfectly fine to say to the psychiatrist,
"If you have a moment, I would love to hear
"a little bit more about why this med now?"
or, "I'm curious to know more about--"
As opposed to at rounds, taking the psychiatrist down
about what you think should have been done differently.
It gets students in trouble.
So be good observers as you go in.
Does that make some sense?
- [Voiceover] Yeah.
- Yeah? Okay.
So we have some time for questions
before our student reps arrive.
So this might be a good time for some
question and answers.
And would you do us the favor of just telling us your name,
just 'cause it helps us get to know you?
Hi, Heather.
(audience member asks inaudible question)
- Yes
- Yes.
So yeah, yeah.
Okay, go on, take it.
- So the question was is the two hours
of individual supervision part
of the 30 hours of the internship?
Yes, it absolutely is part of the 30 hours.
- Right.
Yes?
(audience member asks inaudible question)
- The first question was about what happens
if your supervisor ups and leaves midstream
or the agency closes or something like that,
what happens to you?
We don't leave you.
We don't leave you in the lurch.
You know, we've not really had agencies up and closing,
but if they did, we would have to re-place you, obviously.
We'd be on the hook for that.
We have had some students who've had transition
in supervisors mid-year.
The advantage of us having these long-term relationships
with agencies is they really have,
they know well what Smith requirements are.
And if something happens that a supervisor
either needs to leave or gets sick,
or we've had a couple out on maternity leave,
things like that.
Although, I'm always doing the math and saying,
"You knew in September!"
(laughter)
But anyway, stuff happens.
Stuff happens.
We work with the agencies to identify
another supervisor in-house.
We try not to move you out of the agency,
'cause you've got ongoing connections to your clients.
So most often, we would work
to find another supervisor for you.
Second question about the case study is
if you're in an agency that's got
a specific theoretical formulation, are we gonna be fussing
at you at the end of the day about why you didn't
integrate something else?
No, I think you have to write from the perspective
that you're working with.
And to be able to say, here's why I intervened in this way,
with this client, in this setting.
But you can also use it.
If you're on inpatient psych,
which has about a four day average stay,
you might write about what happened in those four days,
and then also use it as a chance to say,
"You know, if I had this person longer-term,
"here's where I think we would go."
But we couldn't go there.
It wasn't appropriate to go there in a four day stay.
So you can shape it.
You can shape it to what makes sense.
Be practical.
- I would also add that there's a question
in the case study write-up where you take
a couple different theories and just try them on.
- Just play with it.
- And you play with it.
That's part of what we ask,
that you take a theory that you learned in the summer
and integrate it, maybe in a totally new way
than you had originally worked with your client.
And that's part of the exercise.
- There's this gentleman here.
- What's your name?
- Yeah, you.
- [Voiceover] David.
- David who?
Gotcha.
(David asks inaudible question)
- It can be the reading from the summer
that either in real life you didn't do or didn't get.
Or you know, in your agencies, you'll be,
often, you'll be in training seminars
and they'll have readings.
Your supervisor will help you with readings.
They'll say, "Here's a great article
"that might help you with this client."
We're very broad-minded about where it comes from.
It'll be a mix of stuff your supervisor tells you,
FFA may have some ideas, and then there'll be
the aforementioned stuff you really didn't do.
Why don't you take someone?
You got Nick back there.
- You've had a question from the very beginning.
(audience member asks inaudible question)
- That was what I was speaking about
when I said you record from your memory.
You remember the best you can.
And at first, it won't be everything.
But that reminds me to remind you guys,
in your first year practice classes,
they're gonna have you do something later in the summer
where you videotape an interview
and then you do a process from that
and that confuses students.
Because then they think that means in the field
you have to videotape and take it from that.
This is different in the field.
In the field, it's you remember the best you can.
And at first, you'll go,
"I know I had that session,
"and I don't remember what on earth happened."
But you'll get better at it.
It's your memory.
There was a gentleman in the back.
Yes?
(audience member asks inaudible question)
You're talking--
(audience member continues question)
The question is about storing this work electronically.
That's actually a very important question.
Your agency, you'll learn about HIPAA regulations,
the privacy of medical records.
And your agency will talk with you, I think,
about how work can be submitted.
Many, many, many agencies have their own
computerized record system that you're gonna have to learn.
It's kind of a pain in the neck at the beginning of field,
but you have to learn it for your charting.
In terms of things that are due to the school,
talk with your FFA about whether they will accept materials
electronically or if they would rather have it hard copy.
Anything that you send in these reports to us
have to be de-identified.
And you will find, I think it's in the guidelines,
about the HIPAA de-identifiers.
So no names, you know, nothing identifiable.
Obviously no birth dates, social security numbers,
that kind of stuff.
So it's fine to submit things electronically,
but do talk with your agency and field advisor
about the mechanism of that.
Why don't you take some of these over there?
- Why don't you just stand up?
- If you can.
- If you can--
Whoever wants to go; there's like five.
- There are like five of you over there.
That's Nick.
(audience member asks inaudible question)
- That's a good question.
- Yeah, the question is how can you meet up with other folks
who are going to your area,
particularly if you're looking for housing?
Two things, we have alumni networks
in every area that you're going to
and there are placement area coordinators
that we can get you in touch with.
I know I told you I'd get the Philly person
and they were out until Monday.
So we'll get that to you.
And they'll help.
And then you can meet up with each other,
first and second year students,
and you can call me and I can tell you
who was there last year and get you guys connected.
- You'll also see on the placement description forms,
the student will sign, usually at the bottom, their name.
So you'll know the name of the person
who was there last year.
And that's on Moodle, yes.
Somebody else?
(audience member asks inaudible question)
That's a great question.
So the question is what if I'm in a new agency
or there wasn't a student there last year?
And sometimes, supervisors take years off
so that there may not be a placement description on Moodle,
but we do have written placement description forms
from previous years in the reception in Lily Hall
that you're more than welcome to look at.
I would say if you're in a brand new agency,
and we do have every year,
a handful of brand new agencies,
come and see either myself or Carolyn
depending on your geographic area
and we can tell you.
We can fill you in.
We can be the placement description form for you.
- Every agency that we're affiliated with
has completed an application to us,
just as students apply to get into the program,
agencies apply.
We're in a really unusual position.
We're not out there beating the bushes
looking for agencies.
They are applying to us.
And we have many more applications
every year than we can take.
So we've got the application
and we've also done a site visit
and gone out and looked at the place,
so we can fill you in.
There was this woman in the back, on the left side.
There was another question back there.
- Okay, Eli.
- Same? Okay.
- Aphrodite?
(audience member asks inaudible question)
The question is if I'm asked to come
to a Saturday or Sunday training,
does that count as my 30 hours?
(audience member continues question)
Absolutely.
But if you find that you're asked
to do weekend hours more than once,
you should check in with your FFA.
Most of the agencies, you're working
during standard business hours.
Now, a lot of outpatient clinics will ask you to do
maybe some later hours one or two evenings a week
because that's when families can get in.
And you would jockey your hours.
My two cents' worth to you is to try to set
a set schedule every week.
'Cause what happens--
And to pick a half day that you're gonna
take for the community project
and kind of carve that out as a steady
time-out every week,
because otherwise, what ends to happen
is that time gets chewed up.
You start to say, "That's supposed to be my community
"project time, but yeah, I can come in for that."
And before you know it, you're working a 40 hour week.
At the beginning of the year, best you can,
you set a set schedule.
Stay with it.
Allegra...
Okay.
So we have time for maybe, like what, two more?
- Two more.
April.
(audience member asks inaudible question)
- The question is how do we keep track
of the four hours of reading?
It's on that monthly statistical report to your FFA.
We don't need to micromanage that here at this level.
You'll put it on the listing for your FFA, who will see it.
And the FFA, you know, wants to make sure
you're doing reading, but also then, they'll help you.
They'll say, "Oh, I see you're trying
"to learn more about this.
"Let me give you a tip about this other book."
So it's that.
And it's right on the report.
There was somebody in the back
who's been a patient soul.
(audience member asks inaudible question)
The question is if you have to do two hours of prep,
like for a group, does that count as part of your 30 hours?
And it would, but it would be in the agency.
Your body is in the agency 30 hours a week.
And so if you're prepping for a group
or debriefing from a group, you know,
you'll do a group and then you're the group facilitator.
You have to sit down and hash it out afterwards.
All of that's in support of the work.
And you figure, you're there 30 hours,
and you've got maybe 12 direct service hours
and two hours of supervision, the rest--
Where does the rest of that time go besides to meetings?
It goes to collaboration, prep,
work on behalf of clients,
phone calls, more than enough.
You have a follow-up?
(audience member asks inaudible follow-up question)
The follow-up question was do we have trouble
with agencies trying to work more than 30 hours a week?
And if so, what do you do?
Yes, we have had that happen.
I call it the med school mentality.
It happens, I think a lot, on inpatient units.
We'll talk some about that in our small group
where there's a real push.
And students can fall into it,
where you feel like the message is
if you're really committed, you'll sleep on a cot in the--
You know.
And you can fall into that.
Now, I don't want you checking a timeclock either.
If there's an emergency, I don't want you to say,
"Sorry, Smith.
"Suicide Hotline, please hold, Smith."
Smith says I'm outta here at 4:30.
We want you to be sensible if you need
to work over a little bit.
But for the most part, it should be 30 hours.
If you're getting leaned on by the agency
or swallowed up by your own harsh superego,
talk to your supervisor about it
and then your field advisor.
If the agency's really leaning on you,
use your FFA, and we'll help you navigate it.
It can be a problem in the other direction, too.
Sometimes, students don't actually have enough work
and we need the FFA to get in there
and work with the supervisors to balance that as well.
We should stop with all of the questions,
even though I can see more of you have them.
But there's probably very little that can't also
be addressed in the small groups.
So if you have questions--
And then, Maria, Katelin, and I will be at lunch
and you can approach us at lunch
and ask questions there.