What Are Field Placement Positions For Social Workers?

When I was at graduate school for the MSW at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, two days of each week were spent in the field to fulfill the internship requirement. It might not seem like it but this is actually important because it would enable a person to get hands-on experience that could help compliment the in-class study and theories. You also get to receive supervision and can go to the meetings that are held.

There was one year when I was placed at a local university counseling center. This taught me so many things that I could not have learned from reading books alone. For instance, one of my first awakenings was that half of my caseload came fifteen minutes late. I am always someone who gets to appointments very early, sometimes too early. This helped me realize that I needed to be able to focus as soon as possible on the issues at hand because the sessions were shorter for some than I anticipated. Since the day was filled up generally, there was no way to go over the session times.

Also at your social work internship you will be exposed to a number of different cases some of which would stump you leaving you clueless and you might not be always sure of the best way to approach it. This is a good time for you turn to your supervisor or discuss your dilemma during team meetings with your colleagues. The staff meetings where there are clinical cases discussed are a wonderful way to get feedback from other people about the case that you have. There were a number of different points of view from staff because some were behaviorists, others subscribed to the psychoanalytic point of view, and a few people on staff thought in terms of family systems approaches. Bringing up any uncertainties you might have is critical for growth and the internship should be used for expanding your skills. Do not position yourself as an expert because this is a training period and an excellent time to explore problematical cases and learn from more experienced social work clinicians.


Are You Interested in Social Work School to Receive Your Degree?

Read about Top MSW Programs and learn about Social Work Salaries plus topics around mental health, scholarships and licensing.