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Field Education

A Message from Your Field Director

Welcome to field internship, the final year of your social work education. Each student is assigned to an internship that will offer valuable opportunities to apply theory into practice.

The goals for field education are:

  • To facilitate a positive and challenging learning experience in a supervised field setting.
  • To partner with skilled, experienced, and motivated social work practitioners who provide sound field instruction.
  • To train students evidence-based practice in the field.
  • To train competent advanced social work practitioners.
  • To contribute to the workforce in the field of social work.
  • To promote the integration of faith and social work practice.

During field internship students will have the opportunity to learn from a variety of sources. Field supervisors provide weekly individual supervision; some will have group supervision, and there is a preceptor (or secondary supervisor) who will also be a point of contact throughout the internship experience. Finally, students will have the privilege to learn from clients who allow the helping professional into their lives as they share their life stories.

Students:

You will also learn a lot about yourselves as an intern. You will face opportunities for growth professionally, personally and spiritually. For some, your values and faith will be challenged, and as you persevere, you will learn from all of these experiences.

Your internship will provide you with a variety of opportunities to challenge yourself beyond your comfort zone and you will become problem solvers. As interns, you will be a part of a professional team that is committed to challenging injustice and working to ensure equal access to resources to all people (NASW Code of Ethics).

Our commitment is to partner with you, your social work professors and your field agency to help you become a competent, ethical, self evaluating, knowledgeable social workers so you can leave with tools to continue in your professional development.

Students and field instructors:

Please visit this site to locate the BSW Field Internship Manual, the semester student evaluation, application for field and agency affiliation agreement. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Christine Guzman, MSW, LCSW
Director of Field Education
Azusa Pacific University
crguzman@apu.edu
(626) 815 6000, Ext. 5595

Documents

Field internship manual:
Please use the BSW Field Internship Manual as a guide to the BSW internship program. Included are answers to questions that may surface during the year. Please feel free to contact your field director if you have further questions or comments.

Field instructor evaluation for student performance:
The end of the semester evaluation is to be completed by the field instructor and signed by the student at the end of fall semester and spring semester. Please see current field manual for specific date evaluations are due to the field director.

Application into field placement:
Application is to be filled out by the student after completing Field Orientation during the spring prior to entering field. Please see field director for details of the placement process.

*The downloadable version of these documents is provided in Portable Document Format (PDF). To learn more about PDFs or to install Adobe Acrobat Reader, follow this link.
**The downloadable version of this document is provided in Word Document Format (DOC).

Note: This information is current for the 2009-10 academic year; however, all stated academic information is subject to change. Please refer to the current Academic Catalog for the most current and controlling information. For additional information, please contact the appropriate office.