The San Francisco Bay Area is richly endowed with public and private social service and community agencies, collectively reflecting a spectrum of health and welfare service organizations and diverse communities. This diversity makes it possible for the School to select field education settings that provide learning experiences consistent with the mission of social work, the mission of Berkeley Social Welfare, related accreditation guidelines, and in addition, to meet the learning goals and needs of our MSW students.
Criteria for Selecting and Approving Field Placement Settings
The following criteria are used to evaluate and approve agencies as field placement settings for the Berkeley Social Welfare MSW Program:
- The agency must be committed to offering ongoing, educationally sound training which fits well with the profession and related values and ethics of social work.
- A substantial part of the agency's clientele and the majority of the students' client systems must represent vulnerable, at risk, and/or diverse individuals, families, groups, organizations, and/or communities.
- The services offered must be relevant to, effective with, and responsive to these various client or constituent systems.
- The funding auspices of the agency should be largely public; if the agency is a private non-profit, it should receive substantial funding from public funds or have referral relationships with government agencies.
- A Field Instructor meeting the School's requirements must be provided.
- The Field Instructor must have sufficient time to provide a comprehensive orientation to agency practice, a minimum of one hour per week of formal on-site field instruction is expected, and thorough evaluation of the student's competency progression; in addition, the agency must grant field instructors release time to work with students and to attend training activities offered by the School.
- The agency must have appropriate safety and risk reduction policies in place, and must orient students to these policies and uphold them.
- The agency must be willing and able to provide a range of learning opportunities across the intervention cycle (engagement, assessment, intervention, and evaluation) and across all of the levels of social ecology (individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities) commensurate with graduate student learning so that students may practice and meet generalist and/or specialist competencies.
- The agency must provide a safe workspace and other necessary supports (such as clerical assistance, access to a desk, computer, phone, and reimbursement for placement-related expenses) and schedule field placement in accordance with the school's academic and field calendar.
- The agency must be willing to work with a diverse range of students and to work with the university and school to offer reasonable accommodations to eligible students.
- The agency must be able to provide the student with formative and summative bases related to identified competencies based upon observation and/or review of deliverable products (i.e. student self-report is an insufficient basis for evaluation).
- The agency must be willing to collaborate extensively with assigned Field Faculty, to communicate needs and concerns, and to respond to communication and feedback in a timely, professional manner.
- The agency must ensure that required forms are completed and returned in accordance with school guidelines and deadlines including but not limited to competency-based learning agreements and evaluations of students.
The Berkeley Social Welfare MSW Program seeks to develop and maintain ongoing relationships with the highest quality agencies and field instructors in our region. To that end, we initiate communication with agencies of interest, respond to requests, clearly post information and application materials on the school's website, hold webinars to discuss school requirements and expectations, and review external applications twice annually.
Agencies where students are placed are also reviewed annually to determine if they have been able to or appear able to continue to meet the school's criteria. Available data reviewed include the student's formal and informal feedback, review of the key documents submitted (learning agreement, first semester progress review, and final evaluation), and field faculty observations during in-person site visits and phone consultations with the agency and/or field instructor.
Students are required to submit to the School an end-of-year placement evaluation where they provide feedback on their agency experience which is used for purposes of quality assurance and improvement. We provide field agencies and instructors with both affirmation of their assets and with recommendations for continued improvement.
Agencies of Interest Not Formally Approved as Field Placements
In some instances where an agency or program is not approved as a field placement site but is highly desirable to a student and appears to meet the School’s criteria, proactive efforts may be made to recruit, screen, and approve the site. It should be noted, however, that this can take up to three months to occur and is not always possible.
Students may make their interest known verbally during individual field advising meetings or in writing and may supply the Field Consultant with whatever information they have that leads them to believe the agency would be interested in serving and qualified to serve as a field instruction site.
Students may also refer potential field instructors, training coordinators, or agency managers to the Berkeley Social Welfare field education website where they may download information, participate in informational webinars, and submit an online application to become an approved agency. If agencies do not return our phone or email contact or fail to complete and submit forms by stated deadlines, we are unable to consider them.
Once applications are submitted by the agency, we will arrange for virtual and/or in-person visits and will make our determination as to whether they are an approved field placement agency based on the previously described criteria. The opening Field Consultant makes a recommendation to the Chair of Field Education who makes the final decision about approval. Any newly opened placements may be less predictable in quality than placements that have previously established a strong track record.