The Value of the Social Work Internship - How to Use Your Field Placement For Growth

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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. This is important because it enables you to get experience which compliments the in class study and theories. You also receive supervision and can go to the meetings that are held.

One year I was placed at a local university counseling center. This taught me many things that I couldn't learn from 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'll be exposed to cases that stump you and you are not sure of the best approach. This is when you turn to your supervisor or discuss in team meetings. The staff meetings where there are clinical cases discussed are a wonderful way to get feedback. There were a number of different points of view from staff because some were behaviorists, others subscribed to psychoanalysis and a few people on staff thought in terms of family systems approaches. Bringing up any uncertainties is critical for growth and the internship should be used for expanding your skills. Don't 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.

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