An Innovative Public Health Social Work Education Training Model

Historically, meeting the educational and training needs of public health social workers has been a crucial issue for the profession. One main concern has been ensuring that students are trained with a truly unique blending of both social work and public health perspectives and values as well as acquiring the necessary skill sets that reflect the competences inherent in this joint approach. To this end, programs offering joint or dual degrees are responsible for educating students in ways that reflect this combined perspective. This presentation will describe a community-university partnership that enlisted graduate students in designing and implementing a research endeavor that was requested by a community agency serving children and families. Students were exposed to the challenges of developing effective community participatory research; the value of evaluation in documenting and capturing qualitative evidence of service effectiveness; and the role of research as an advocacy tool in leveraging resources for agencies and educating policy makers. The process utilized in achieving this research is a potential model for training public health social workers. This presentation will discuss the techniques utilized in this experiential, hands-on format that engaged students throughout the entire research process. It will also explore the potential of this unique teaching/training model as a method of combining the critical elements of public health practicum needs while building on the skill set inherent in the social work profession; thus, providing a forum for developing the blended ideology central to the standard and competencies for the public health social work profession.