Smith College School for Social Work, Office of Field Education records
Scope and Contents
The Smith College School for Social Work, Office of Field Education records documents the work of the Office of Field Education to develop and maintain the field education program. Particularly well documented is the Schools networking and relationship building with various social work-related agencies around the U.S., including correspondence, applications to become host agencies, reports and oversight records, reviews of agency experiences by students, and agency descriptions.
The collection also documents the training of supervisors through the annual supervisor conferences and the administration of the program, through policy documents, student applications for placement, and supervisor reports on the performance of students.
Dates of Materials
- Creation: 1908 - 2009
Creator
Conditions Governing Access
Materials in the Smith College Archives are open for use, with the following exceptions: "Office Files," files of records created for the use of the administrative unit that created them, are closed to research for a period of 10 years following their creation. Faculty tenure and promotion files, as well as inactive faculty files are closed permanently. Student academic records, student disciplinary records, and all records containing FERPA-covered student information are closed during the lifetime of the student. Student records created 100 years or more ago are assumed to be about deceased students. In all cases, the College Archives will continue to provide public access to materials that were intended to be public at the time of their creation (press releases, publications, etc.)
Conditions Governing Use
Smith College retains copyright of materials created as part of its business operations; however, copyright in other items in this collection may be held by their respective creators. For reproductions of materials that are governed by fair use as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission to cite or publish is required. For instances which may regard materials in the collection not created by Smith College, researchers are responsible for determining who may hold materials' copyrights and obtaining approval from them. Researchers do not need anything further from Smith College Special Collections to move forward with their use.
Biographical / Historical
The Smith College School for Social Work, Office of Field Education oversees the placement of M.S.W. students in field internships and organizes the faculty advisers and on-site supervisors at affiliated centers. While the Field Office assigns and organizes M.S.W. field internships, doctoral students arrange their clinical internships directly with the doctoral program.
Since the Smith College School for Social Work's founding in 1918, students have been expected to carry out internships and placements in hospitals, psychiatric facilities, social work organizations, school districts, government agencies, and NGOs. Field placements have allowed students an opportunity to integrate their academic knowledge from the classroom with clinical social work practice.
To complete a field placement today, students are expected to complete an agency internship, a learning plan, engagement in field evaluation process, weekly process recordings with field supervisors, 8 monthly narratives per field year, 2 papers per field year, and a Field Seminar. The objectives of the Field program are to develop students' professional identity as a clinical social worker, to allow students to learn to apply the values and ethics of the profession, to develop students' practical skills and build upon the theoretical and empirical knowledge gained during the summer academic sessions, and to develop students' knowledge base and skills needed to work for social justice on behalf of populations at risk.
In 1994, the faculty voted to work towards making the School an anti-racism institution by ensuring that the School's goals, course and sequence objectives, and field internship experiences are informed by an anti-racism stance. While discussions about the impact of racism, oppression and intersecting identities take place throughout field, there are two specific assignments designed to help students explore these issues as they relate to social work practice. First-year MSW students complete a structural analysis assignment entitled “Understanding Your Agency” which focuses in part on the internship agency policies and/or practices as they relate to issues of race and anti-racism work. Second year students develop and implement a piece of anti-racism work.
Overall management of the field program is provided by the Director of Field Education and the Field Education Department, which also consists of two Associate Directors, Field Systems Coordinator, and administrative support staff. Field Faculty members are actively involved in developing and implementing policies and procedures through work in the Field Development and Planning Committee, Field Placement Committee, and annual faculty field adviser and field seminar faculty meetings. Field curriculum and policies are governed by the School’s resident faculty and deans.
Bibliography
"M.S.W. Field Education Guide, 2020-2021." Northampton, MA: Smith College School for Social Work, Office of Field Education, 2020.
Extent
17.792 linear feet (18 containers)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
The Smith College School for Social Work, Office of Field Education oversees the placement of M.S.W. students in field internships and organizes the faculty advisers and on-site supervisors at affiliated centers. The records documents the work of the Office to develop and maintain the field education program. Particularly well documented is the Schools networking and relationship building with various social work-related agencies around the U.S.
Arrangement
This collection has been added to over time in multiple "accessions." An accession is a group of materials received from the same source at approximately the same time. The accessions are arranged in alphabetical order.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Transferred from the Office of Field Education, starting in 1991.
Processing Information
In 2021, the processing archivist, Madison White, split the Smith College School for Social Work records into several smaller collections, including this collection. Materials that had been received from the Office of Field Education were grouped together into this collection. Material has been left in their original accessions, i.e. groups of materials received from the same source at approximately the same time. Because of this, most materials are in the original order in which we received them. Existing accession inventories were imported into this finding aid, and accessions that were undescribed received brief overview description.
Source
Subject
- Smith College. School for Social Work. Office of Field Education (Organization)
- Smith College. School for Social Work -- Faculty (Organization)
- Smith College. School for Social Work (Organization)
Genre / Form
Topical
- Title
- Finding aid to the Smith College School for Social Work, Office of Field Education records
- Status
- Enhanced Finding Aid (Completed)
- Author
- Madison White
- Date
- 2021
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Finding aid is written in English.
Revision Statements
- 2021-02-26: Created new collection from School for Social Work records
Repository Details
Part of the Smith College Archives Repository
