5.3 Field Placement Attendance in Times of Disruption

Labor-Management Disputes 

When a field placement agency experiences a labor dispute or actions such as a strike, student attendance at field practicum may not be possible. In general, the student should confer with their Field Instructor, the Agency Training Coordinator, and Berkeley Social Welfare MSW Field Consultant to determine the most appropriate course of action. If labor action is likely to disrupt the student’s access to learning activities and appropriate educational supervision and instruction, then students are not allowed to be at placement until such time as access to learning activities and instruction can be reinstated. In many cases, meaningful tasks may be assigned for the student to complete remotely including administrative, planning, and evaluation work, or analyzing the contractual or labor-management dispute so they learn more about unions as they function in social service agencies.

Students who miss field placement due to labor disputes and are not able to do meaningful work remotely must still fulfill the minimum service time commitment. If the labor dispute persists for a protracted period of time and another comparable placement is available, the School reserves the right to place the student in another field setting so that they may complete their education in normative time.

Natural or Human-made Disasters

The San Francisco Bay Area is subject to wildfires, earthquakes, power outages, flooding, and other natural or human-made disasters that may impact the agency, the student’s home, or the mode of transportation between them. In these instances, the field program usually sends correspondence to all agencies and students about whether field placement has been cancelled for affected agencies or students.

If placement cancellations occur for less than two placement weeks in an academic year and the student uses those days to learn about how agencies provide services to their constituents during times of disaster, the placement days typically do not need to be made up. If the disaster is of such a magnitude that placement is disrupted beyond two placement weeks, students may be allowed to meet the minimum time service increment as long as they also continue to meet all identified competency requirements. In extreme cases of natural disaster where an agency must temporarily or permanently close, the student may need to be placed into another field setting so that they may complete their education in normative time.