Supervision sessions with field instructors are provided in such a way that all field instructors attend at the same time if the group is not too large (less than twelve). This offers a broader view on social work practice, because students have the chance to .discuss issues from four various fields of practice. If groups are big, like they were in the Croatian study, supervision is performed in small groups according to the setting where students practise. Specific qualities of every social work setting are discussed as well as possible problems or dilemmas that arise from the contact with the clients and their families.
At supervision meetings at least one student presents his or her learning from the client. These presentations provide a rich material for discussion and for further learning for other students.
4.7. Roles and Responsibilities when Contact-Challenge Method is Used in Social Work Practice Education
Under the following subheadings, roles and responsibilities of all participants within the Contact-Challenge Method will be explored.
4. 7.1. The Role of the Agency and the Field Instructor
The agency that is accepting students has to see its role and meaning in student education. Three major responsibilities of the agency described by Selig ( 1 982) are:
... the responsibility to make commitment to the educational process at all levels within the agency, to provide a positive educational climate for staff and students alike, and to provide adequate learning experiences (Selig, 1 982: 1 42- 1 43).
The main problem in most social work schools is that it is difficult to find quality placements for all students. Taking a student is a very responsible and time-consuming job. If we want agencies to take students they need to see their benefits in that process.
A student in field practice is not 'just another service person' in the agency, theorists argue. This usual pitfall may be avoided by careful planning, by setting clear outcomes for the placement and by assigning a field instructor who has responsibility for providing the field experience. Students may enrich the agency with their knowledge and continuous contact with the faculty, social work theory and research is essential for effective functioning of a social work agency. As social work teachers need agencies to be in continuous contact with the
(
practice, social work agencies need faculty and students to enrich their practice.
Field instructors' work needs to be recognised, and by recognising the value of their input, the quality of their performance will inevitably be improved.
The agency has to see what are the advantages of having students. The permanent gain for the agency may be in the direct contact with the learning
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institution, that means continuous contact with new trends in performing practice and in giving the opportunity to field instructors to have a direct impact on tertiary education. Knowing students who might be interested in work in the agency when they complete their studies is an advantage for the agency as well. Students can
carry out useful work for the agency and reflect on its practices. Students, as outside persons, may also see advantages and disadvantages of the services the agency offers. Fieldwork is actually, an exchange programme, where it is necessary to clarify goals, outcomes and benefits for all parties.
When Contact-Challenge is employed social work students are useful for the agency, because they help clients to improve the quality of their lives. By being in continuous contact with the client, a novice student can undertake some simple everyday activities with the client that can improve the client's quality of life. A student is also a valuable link between the social worker and the client and his or her family. By the end of the first field work experience, a student may become so skilful that he or she can undertake some professional social work tasks as well. Continuous attendance at supervision sessions and being in touch with the teaching institution helps field instructors to meet their needs for professional development. It also offers the opportunity to meet with colleagues and have the chance to learn about other fields of social work and theories that underpin social work practice.
The role of the field instructor is in helping students integrate theoretical knowledge and experience in the field. He or she helps students to identify, understand and focus on the specific task and accept client's view of the specific problem. The role of the field instructor is to create a context where students will be able to consider ethical and other dilemmas that are often present in social work practice. Field instructor's role is to help students to identify those problems and develop personal attitudes that they will need for their future job. Clarification and application of social work values in everyday practice helps students to
become competent professionals. In the Contact-Challenge Programme field instructor' s role is to match students and clients and to negotiate their roles in the Programme. His or her role is to supervise and be continuous link between clients,
students and the Programme co-ordinator.
The job of the field instructor is to encourage a student to go beyond his or her comfort zone and to allow him or her to understand and practice the art, skill and science of the professional social work. That means to help students develop the high level of knowledge and skills based on theory and principles of social work, support them to think critically about it, and develop their professional identity. Students have to be encouraged to re-examine their value systems, ethical integrity and standards for quality job performance. Because of these broad goals for effective field instruction, the field instructor has to develop an approach where students will not be seen as apprentices who have to follow every instructor's suggestion blindly, but responsible colleagues who have to be encouraged to become effective professionals.
To expect from a beginning student to confidently intervene as a
professional is generally too demanding. Therefore, when the Contact-Challenge Method is employed, students have the chance to go step by step, following
client's needs and reflecting on their actions during supervision sessions with field instructors.
The field instructor's responsibilities are clearly defined in the Contact Challenge Method:
1 . To select clients who may benefit from the Programme
2. To ask clients if they would like to participate in the Contact-Challenge Programme and assist social work students to become better professionals
3 . To be present at group supervisions and available for individual consultations if necessary
4. To maintain continuous contact with the client and hislher family.
During the field experience social work values may be challenged more often than during lectures. For example, the issue of client's self-determination when presented in lectures is rarely questioned by students. However, when
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students are involved in fieldwork, it becomes apparent that their own prejudices and personal beliefs can prevent them from respecting a client's right for self determination.
Field instructors have to be aware that learning for doing entails theory, skill and experience, and their main task is in the integration of the three. Field instructors have to be able to dialogue with students about alternative ideas or assumptions, permanently linking theory with practice. They should be able to explain the same event from different theoretical view points and to support students to do so.
The role of the field instructor is in helping students understand the Programme and the mission and the vision of the agency where he or she works. The field instructor has to encourage students to accept clients' life styles, values and backgrounds, which may be very different from theirs. When a client's life style, values and background are similar to the student's, the field instructor has to assist them in setting appropriate boundaries. During the field instruction students have to be helped in defining their roles and responsibilities and in accepting roles and responsibilities of the other persons involved in clients' lives. The role of the field instructor is to supervise and help a student when engaged in problem solving with the client, and to help him or her when student's personal problems are blocking the communication between the student and the client or between the student and the field instructor. In social work education, students are very often told not to mix personal experiences with professional practice and that
"professional distance" is very important for effective practice. It is necessary to discuss that with students. It is naive to believe that student's or practitioner' s personal experiences will not influence their practice. It is also impossible to exclude personal experiences and beliefs completely. Trying to exclude them can only prevent social workers from being in contact with the client. However, it is necessary for students to be encouraged to learn about their prejudices, and ways to prevent doing harm to clients. It is also essential that during their professional training students have enough opportunities to learn about their professional roles. Social workers can use their personal experiences as a rich source for a helping
relationship. Continuous supervision can help disadvantages of this approach. During the practical experience in the fieldwork, students have to clarify their dilemmas and attitudes, and that may help them in their future jobs. Values that permeate social work practice, described in the code of ethics of the profession have to be discussed and connected with examples in practice. The choice of a client is essential in order to organise that experience in such a way that the client and the student can benefit from that encounter.
The job of the field instructor is to help students feel comfortable with social work practice through establishing comfortable working relationships. Field instructor' s job is to give constructive positive and negative feedback to the
student and to be able to listen and accept student's viewpoints. By supporting students in their professional growth and development, field instructors have the chance to clarify their own professional qualities.
For the effective performance of the above-mentioned roles, field
instructors have to be in continuous contact with the learning institution and have to have a small number of students. They have to have time and space to discuss situations in the field with students in order to convert regular everyday practice to the educative experience. It is also argued that field instructors have to know their clients really well in order to provide useful experiences for them while in the contact with students. When Contact-Challenge Method is employed the whole experience has to be educative and useful for all participants.
4. 7.2. The Role of the Client
This thesis argues that clients are an integral part of the teaching-learning process in social work. The first client is likely to be remembered throughout one's professional practice. Encounters with clients, be they individual, group or family are vital for the complete education of social workers. The client's consent to participate is essential for the learning that may happen from that encounter. Randolph ( 1 982) argues that a client's agreement to encounter students, to some extent, assumes responsibility for a portion of a student's education. Client's
1 76 experience has a potential great value for students, especially their previous
experience with social workers. The value of this experience has been utilised in the Contact-Challenge Method. Clients involved in the Contact-Challenge
Programme know how would they like to be treated from social workers and what they need from them. Their previous experience with social workers - being good, bad or neutral - when shared with students can add a special value to the learning process. Long term clients, that is persons with special needs (in the widest sense of the term, where it encompasses every person who needs help and support in performing everyday tasks) are a rich source of wisdom for social work students. Furthermore, they can also benefit from being in contact with students, who may help them perform everyday tasks and become more integrated in the community. Therefore, in the Contact-Challenge Method, clients are openly asked to share their experiences with social workers, whereas students are asked to offer them help and support in such a way clients see as appropriate. Principles of mutuality, respecting the uniqueness of each individual and empowerment are exercised continuously during the Programme. Clients are treated as experts and their responsibility is clearly defined.
This is very much in accordance with Paolo Freire's political viewpoint about education. These ideas can be utilised equally in education for social workers and in social work practice.
Authentic education is not carried on by A
fo
r B orby
Aabout
B, butrather by A
with
B, mediated by the world - a world which impresses and challenges both parties, giving rise to views or opinions about it. These views, impregnated with anxieties, doubts, hopes, or hopelessness, imply significant themes on the basis of which the programme content of education can be built. In its desire to create an ideal model of the ' good man', a naively conceived humanism often overlooks the concrete, existential, present situation of real man. Authentic humanism in Pierre Furter's words, 'consists in permitting the emergence of the awareness of our full humanity, as a condition and as an obligation, as a situation and as a project' . We simply cannot go to the workers - urban or peasant - in the banking style giving them 'knowledge' or to impose upon them the model of the ' good man' contained in a programme whose content we have ourselves organised. Many political and educational plans have failed because their authors designed them according to their own personal viewsof reality, never once taking into account (except as mere objects of their action) the
man-in-a-situation
towards whom their programme was ostensibly directed (Freire, 1 972:66).Educational programmes, especially those that refer to social work (which is a profession that provides services), should be tailored by consumers and for consumers. In social work education, firstly - students are consumers, secondly - social work agencies are consumers, because they employ students when they complete their studies, and thirdly - social work clients and their families are consumers because social workers 'created' in social work schools are going to serve them. Having these three consumer groups it is necessary to involve them as much as possible in tailoring educational programmes.
In the Contact-Challenge Method the responsibilities of the client are:
1 . To meet with students once a week during the academic year
2. To make a plan of association with the student according to his or her needs (with parent's, field instructor's or student's help if necessary). This plan may involve learning or fun activities, walks, help in everyday tasks, learning together, shopping, trips, conversations .. .
3 . To tell the student how would he or she like to be treated from social workers, and by doing that help social work students to become better professionals
4. To share any concerns about the method with the field instructor or programme co-ordinator.
In cases when clients are too young or too disabled to undertake these responsibilities, they are discussed with family members, caretakers or field instructors and the learning contract is modified according to the client's abilities.
4. 7.3. The Role of the Programme Co-ordinator
The main role of the Programme co-ordinator is to co-ordinate the Programme and to provide a context conducive to learning. His or her job is to provide a Book of Readings and suggest relevant literature for the course, to
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moderate interactive lectures, to lead skills training workshops and to participate
. .
m supervIsIon sessIOns.
Since teachers, are traditionally responsible for the transmission of theoretical knowledge at tertiary education settings, they have the key role in presenting theory and assessing theoretical knowledge. According to the Andragogy, Choice Theory and Experiential Learning Theory, the role of the teacher is changed and he or she becomes more a facilitator who equally participates in the process of learning rather than an omniscient transmitter of knowledge. The teacher became an explorer and a source of information, or according to Lindemann:
He [sic] is no longer an oracle who speaks from the platforms of authority but rather the guide, the pointer-out, who also participates in learning in proportion to the vitality and relevance of his facts and experiences (Lindemann, 1 926: 52).
The role of the facilitator is in helping students to learn how to learn, to use their learning styles and develop new learning styles in order to learn more effectively. Machlup ( 1 979) argues that every good teacher can become more effective if he or she adds to his or her fine qualities (as a lecturer, expositor, discussion leader, advisor and sympathetic friend of students), the requirement for reading and other homework for his or her students. Lectures are meant to be complementary with readings, not repetition or substitutes of reading. Lectures are the chance for classroom discussions to take place, based on assigned readings. The focus is on comprehension and understanding, not on mere memorisation of data. In Contact-Challenge lectures are primarily interactive. Endless lecturer's monologues are exchanged with vivid discussions and students are expected to come prepared to lectures.
It has to be emphasised that the teacher is not only a facilitator of student
experience. He or she
. . . must play an active role in constructing and presenting well-integrated and coherent frameworks within which to locate and understand individual as well as group experience (Brah and Hoy, 1 989: 75).
Bertha Capen Reyndols ( 1 942) believes that the role of the teacher in social work is to give students the security in the fundamental belief that people are worth respecting and worth working with for improvement in social
relationships. She sees that the role of the teacher is to give students a scientific orientation, be honest and tell them that the contradictions between the best social workers knowledge and social workers usual practice are regrettable, but not