Suggested Learning Activities to Accomplish Practice Behaviors
SOWK 5835 – Fall Semester
Competency
Practice Behavior
a. advocate for client access to the services of social
work
b. practice personal reflection and self-correction to
assure continual professional development
c. attend to professional roles and boundaries
1. Identify as a professional
social worker and conduct
oneself accordingly.
d. demonstrate professional demeanor in behavior,
appearance, and communication
e. engage in career-long learning
f. use supervision and consultation
Suggested Activities
 referrals, addressing service gaps and restrictive
eligibility criteria, assisting clients in the actual
application for services
 share with supervisor your thoughts about your
performance as applied to discrete pieces of practice
and plan for ways to improve
 write thoughts about your performance as applied to
discrete piece of practice in a journal
 monitor urges to blur the boundaries, examine the
source of these urges, and maintain awareness to
not act on the urges, achieve to eliminate the source
of any urge to blur boundary, share with supervisor
 read and discuss the intern duties and
responsibilities with your supervisor
 ask supervisor how you are coming across, assess if
you are in the norm of professional behavior at your
agency, practice professional communication by desubjectifying language and utilizing language
appropriate to the agency setting
 read and follow agency policy and procedures
regarding professional behavior, dress code, and
communication (e.g., case notes, memos, e-mail,
etc.)
 read a minimum of one scholarly article a week to
begin the habit of regular learning
 attend one training in the community pertaining to
field placement (i.e., in-service training, diversity
training, etc.)
 make an agenda for supervision, create a log of
entries of important material learned in supervisory
sessions, seek help from others at the agency
Suggested Activities 12/09 1
Competency
Practice Behaviors
a. recognize and manage personal values in a way that
allows professional values to guide practice
2. Apply social work ethical
principles to guide
professional practice.
b. make ethical decisions by applying standards of the
NASW Code of Ethics and, as applicable, of the
International Federation of Social Workers/
International Association of Schools of Social Work
Ethics in Social Work Statement of Principles
c. tolerate ambiguity in resolving ethical conflicts
d. apply strategies of ethical reasoning to arrive at
principles decisions
Competency
Practice Behaviors
a. distinguish, appraise, and integrate multiple sources
of knowledge, including research-based knowledge,
and practice wisdom
3. Apply critical thinking to
inform and communicate
professional judgments.
b. analyze models of assessment, prevention,
intervention, and evaluation, and demonstrate
effective oral and written communication in
working with individuals, families, groups,
organizations, and communities
Suggested Activities
 recognize the differences between a personal
response to a client and a professional response
during an interaction with a client and provide the
rationale for your professional response
 identify personal values that are in agreement
and/or conflict with agency and client population
 chose an interaction or situation with a client which
requires you to ground an action with a client in the
NASW Code of Ethics and provide a rationale for
your behavior
 observe, first, how other social workers tolerate
ambiguities, imagine yourself in their shoes, and
then describe how you tolerated the “grey” zone in
assessing how you would respond and do respond to
an ambiguously ridden ethical situation
 choose a situation requiring an ethical discussion
and trace with your supervisor the steps you took to
achieve the decision as you link each step to a
principle, value, or standard in the NASW Code of
Ethics
Suggested Activities
 review scholarly journals and select the journals
that apply to the internship setting
 read articles from selected scholarly journals to
increase knowledge
 read agency/organization newsletters and reports to
improve knowledge and practice wisdom
 effective oral and written communication in
working with individuals, families, groups,
organizations, and communities
 observe how others utilize the above models to
guide their practice and then observe how you use
the same and provide a critique; verbal interactions
with clients, case conferences, and documentation
Suggested Activities 12/09 2
c. demonstrate effective oral and written
communication in working with individuals,
families, groups and communities
Competency
Practice Behaviors
a. recognize the extent to which a culture’s structures
and values may oppose, marginalize, alienate,
create or enhance privilege and power
b. gain sufficient self-awareness to eliminate the
influence of personal biases and values in working
with diverse groups
4. Engage diversity and
difference in practice.
c. recognize and communicate their understanding of
the importance of difference in shaping life
experiences
d. view themselves as learners and engage those with
whom they work as informants
 identify models of assessment, prevention,
intervention, and evaluation utilized at your agency
 identify the theoretical construct for models of
assessment, prevention, intervention, and evaluation
 interactions with clients, groups, families, and
communities; case reporting and documentation
 have your supervisor review case notes, case plans,
intake forms, etc. to assess the quality of written
communication skills
 assess oral communication skills utilized, formally
or informally, while working with an individual,
family, group, organization, or community meeting
 discuss individual assessment with supervisor
Suggested Activities
 review several client files and assess cultural values
and determine if marginalization has occurred (i.e.,
agency decisions that could have been influenced
by poverty, sexual orientation, non-traditional
family, etc.)
 share with your supervisor pre-existing biases or
micro kinds of misperceptions you have about your
clients and how those are being corrected in the
reality of your professional experiencing of the
clients
 first, identify what you observe as the unique
qualities and attributes of your clients
 appreciate how your clients incorporate their
uniqueness
 then share with your supervisor how the uniqueness
of your clients impacts their experiences and life
trajectory
 share with your supervisor how you are open to
knowing the unique attributes of your clients which
extend beyond your understanding of generic
attributes
Suggested Activities 12/09 3
 specify how you allow yourself to understand the
unique differences in your client through listening
to your clients
Competency
Practice Behaviors
a. understand the forms and mechanisms of
oppression and discrimination
5. Advance human rights and
social and economic justice.
b. advocate for human rights and social and economic
justice
c. engage in practices that advance social and
economic justice
Competency
6. Engage in research-informed
practice and practiceinformed research.
Practice Behaviors
a. use practice experiences to inform scientific inquiry
b. use research evidence to inform practice
Competency
7. Apply knowledge of human
behavior and the social
environment.
Competency
8. Engage in policy practice to
Practice Behaviors
a. utilize conceptual frameworks to guide the process
of assessment, intervention, and evaluation
Suggested Activities
 describe with your supervisor the ways in which
your clients have been marginalized and the cultural
and societal dynamics which promote the
marginalization (i.e., ethnicity, religious beliefs,
socioeconomic status, rural vs. urban environment,
gender, sexual orientation, ageism, etc.)
 read agency policy on discrimination
 describe how you promote human rights and social
and economic justice with your clients
 describe your plans and actual actions taken that
promote social and economic justice
Suggested Activities
 use a client situation or issue to research scholarly
information (i.e., domestic violence, juvenile
delinquency, truancy) and begin to connect
underlying issues
 after reading scholarly information, integrate with
service plans
Suggested Activities
 write down and discuss a framework that was
applied during the assessment phase with field
supervisor
b. critique and apply knowledge to understand person
and environment
Practice Behaviors
a. analyze, formulate and advocate for policies that
Suggested Activities
Suggested Activities 12/09 4
advance social and economic
well-being and to deliver
effective social work
services.
Competency
9. Respond to contexts that
shape practice.
advance social well-being
b. collaborate with colleagues and clients for effective
policy action
Practice Behaviors
a. continuously discover, appraise, and attend to
changing locales, populations, scientific
technological developments, and emerging societal
trends to provide relevant services
Suggested Activities
 observe and describe the multiple ways in which the
above provided opportunities to enhance service
delivery
 in supervision, discuss information learned and
critically analyze the multiple levels and the
influence (or lack thereof) on client population
b. provide leadership in promoting sustainable
changes in service delivery and practice to improve
the quality of social services
Competency
Practice Behaviors
Engagement
a. substantively and effectively prepare for action with
individuals, families, groups
10. Engage, assess, intervene,
and evaluate with
individuals, families,
groups, organizations, and
communities
Suggested Activities
 read case files and any other pertinent information
to prepare for engagement with individuals,
families, groups, organizations, and communities
b. use empathy and other interpersonal skills
c. develop mutually agreed-upon focus of work and
desired outcomes
Assessment
a. collect, organize, and interpret client data
b. assess client strengths and limitations
c. develop mutually agreed-upon intervention goals
and objectives
d. select appropriate intervention strategies
Intervention
a. initiate actions to achieve organizational goals
b. implement prevention interventions that enhance
client capacities
c. help clients resolve problems
d. negotiate, mediate and advocate for clients
Suggested Activities 12/09 5
e. facilitate transitions and endings
Evaluate
a. critically analyze, monitor, and evaluate
interventions
Suggested Activities 12/09 6