METROPOLITAN STATE UNIVERSITY OF DENVER
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL WORK- MSW Concentration Year Macro
LEARNING AGREEMENT
Student:
MSU Denver Email:
Faculty Field Liaison:
Agency and Program Name:
Field Instructor (FI):
Task Supervisor (TS):
Phone & Email:
Phone & Email:
Field Placement Schedule
MSW Concentration Year students are required to complete 20 hours each week in their field placement, or 300 hours
each semester, for a total of 600 hours over the 30-week academic year.
Below, please provide your planned schedule (specific times) for participating in your field placement. The plan should
reflect the ability to secure the required hours each semester.
Mondays:
Thursdays:
Tuesdays:
Fridays:
Wednesdays:
Sat/Sun:
Supervision Plan
Students are required to receive at least one hour of individual and/or group supervision by their Field Instructor each
week. In certain situations, biweekly supervision may suffice if this is supplemented by weekly supervision by a Task
Supervisor with an advanced related degree. Please outline your plan for regular supervision.
THIS COMPLETED LEARNING AGREEMENT IS DUE TO YOUR FIELD LIASION BY THE DATE LISTED ON YOUR SYLLABUS.
****BOTH STUDENT AND FIELD INSTRUTOR SHOULD KEEP A SIGNED COPY OF THIS AGREEMENT. ****
Student Signature:
Date:
FI or TS Signature:
Date:
Instructions for Learning Agreement
The purpose of the Learning Agreement is to provide a framework for planning the student's individualized experiences
within the field placement agency. The student and field instructor should work together to identify learning tasks,
activities, and experiences for the student to engage in, in order to assess mastery in the areas below (which will be
done in the semester evaluations). The Learning Agreement is a flexible document that may be modified throughout
the year to ensure the student is engaged in appropriate learning experiences.
For each area:
1. Write specific learning activities available in your field placement to correspond with the
following objectives (use additional paper if necessary)
2.
Indicate the time frame in which the learning will take place or be completed
Example:
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Attend regular monthly Board meetings (once a month)
Keep informal journal of uncomfortable client interactions and review them with my supervisor
(weekly)
Meet with ---X--- referral agency to learn about the services they offer and how our agencies
collaborate (October)
Observe three individual client sessions with various therapists in department (Oct-Nov)
Co-Facilitate psycho-educational sexual assault support group (Jan-April)
Review agency policies regarding client confidentiality (September)
MSW Program: Concentration Year Competencies and Practice Behaviors
Macro Practice
EPAS Competency #1: Identify as a professional social worker and conducts oneself accordingly.
Social Workers serve as representatives of the profession, its mission, and its core values. They know the
profession’s history. Social workers commit themselves to the profession’s enhancement and to their own
professional conduct and growth. The Intern:
1.1
1.1a
1.1b
1.1c
1.1d
Practice Behavior
Recognizes the impact that personal and societal biases have on diverse populations at the micro,mezzo,
and macro levels and intervenes to mitigate the impact as an advanced macro level social worker.
Demonstrates understanding and identification with social work’s history, mission, and core values by
attending to professional conduct, social work roles, and boundaries.
Understands and identifies strengths, limitations and challenges for self and organizations.
Uses supervision to engage in reflective practice.
Identifies opportunities for social workers as agency leaders, program/policy designers and
developers, and advocates.
Learning Activity
Time Frame Completed In
EPAS Competency #2: Apply social work ethical principles to guide professional practice.
Social Workers have an obligation to conduct themselves ethically and to engage in ethical decision-making. Social
workers are knowledgeable about the value base of the profession, its ethical standards, and relevant law. The
Intern:
2.1
2.1a
2.1b
Practice Behavior
Applies legal and ethical decision making skills to issues specific to community assessment, program
design and development, organizational leadership, social entrepreneurial activities, and
management in a variety of service delivery areas.
Identifies and uses knowledge of group and relationship dynamics, including value differences, and
power and privilege differences, when grappling with ethical dilemmas.
Appreciates and holds ambiguity when resolving ethical conflicts.
Learning Activity
Updated: 09/2015
Time Frame Completed In
MSW Concentration Year Competencies and Practice Behaviors
EPAS Competency #3: Apply critical thinking and communicate professional judgments.
Social Workers are knowledgeable about the principles of logic, scientific inquiry, and reasoned discernment. They
use critical thinking augmented by creativity and curiosity. Critical thinking also requires the synthesis and
communication of relevant information. The Intern:
3.1
Practice Behavior
Communicates effectively with diverse populations and within organizations and communities.
3.1a
3.1b
3.1c
Critically examines practice situations to formulate professional viewpoints.
Demonstrates effective oral and written communication to convey professional viewpoints.
Communicates effectively with other constituents and other professionals to coordinate interventions.
Practice Behavior
3.2
3.2a
3.2b
Evaluates, selects, and implements appropriate assessment, intervention, and evaluation tools for use with
diverse target populations.
Identifies and articulates clients systems’ strengths, capacities and vulnerabilities.
Evaluates the array of macro practice models and theories and differentially applies them across diverse
situations.
Learning Activity
Time Frame Completed In
EPAS Competency #4: Engage diversity and difference in practice.
Social Workers understand how diversity characterizes and shapes the human experience and is critical to the
formation of identity. The dimensions of diversity are understood as the intersectionality of multiple factors including
age, class, color, culture, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, immigration status, political
ideology, race, religion, sex, and sexual orientation. Social Workers appreciate that, as a consequence of difference,
a person’s life experiences may include oppression, poverty, marginalization, and alienation as well as privilege,
power, and acclaims. The Intern:
4.1
4.1a
4.1b
4.1c
Practice Behavior
Utilize culturally appropriate evidence-based theories and practices with specific diverse populations as
advanced macro level social work professionals.
Manages personal biases and value conflicts so that they do not affect professional practice; demonstrates
personal awareness related to power and privilege, ethnicity, race, gender identity and expression,
immigration status, political ideology, religion, sex, age, and sexual orientation so that personal biases and
value conflicts do not affect professional practice.
Recognizes the impact that oppression and discrimination have upon individuals, groups and communities,
and designs programs and policies to address inequities.
Works effectively with diverse populations.
Learning Activity
Updated: 09/2015
Time Frame Completed In
MSW Concentration Year Competencies and Practice Behaviors
EPAS Competency #5: Advance human rights and social and economic justice.
Social Workers understand that each person regardless of position in society, has basic human rights, such as
freedom, safety, privacy, an adequate standard of living, health care, and education. Social workers recognize
global interconnections of oppression and are knowledgeable about theories of justice and strategies to promote
human and civil rights. Social work incorporates social justice practices in organizations, institutions, and society to
ensure that these basic human rights are distributed equitably and without prejudice. The Intern:
5.1
5.1a
5.1b
5.1c
Practice Behavior
Advocate at multiple levels for the promotion of mental health by identifying and reducing risk factors,
increasing prevention efforts and equality of access to mental health services regardless of social or
economic status.
Identifies and engages outreach, education, and awareness activities that are designed to target and inform
at-risk and disadvantaged populations.
Understand the discriminatory and marginalizing impact of institutionalized policies of oppression.
Advocates for policies, interventions, and differential strategies to address mechanisms of oppression and
discrimination.
Learning Activity
Time Frame Completed In
EPAS Competency #6: Engage in research-informed practice and practice-informed research.
Social workers use practice experience to inform research, employ evidence-based interventions, evaluate their own
practice, and use research findings to improve practice, policy, and social service delivery. Social workers
comprehend quantitative and qualitative research and understand scientific and ethical approaches to building
knowledge. The Intern:
Practice Behavior
6.1
Relate mental health disorder theories, models and research to appropriate client systems and circumstances.
6.1a
Utilizes quantitative and qualitative research to understand the nature of communities and organizations,
and best practices to improve wellbeing in these macro systems.
6.1b
Uses empirical evidence to create strategies for system change.
Practice Behavior
6.2
Identifies and selects effective evidence-based theories and models as the basis for social work macro
interventions.
6.2a
Uses evidence based macro leadership and management models.
6.2b
Critiques and evaluates the efficacy of the strategies.
Practice Behavior
6.3
Applies foundation research skills to evaluate policy outcomes using advanced social work macro strategies
6.3a
Assembles and critiques evaluation instruments already in use.
6.3b
Applies research skills to evaluate policy outcomes and inform future policy advocacy approaches.
Learning Activity
Updated: 09/2015
Time Frame Completed In
MSW Concentration Year Competencies and Practice Behaviors
EPAS Competency #7: Apply knowledge of human behavior and the social environment.
Social workers are knowledgeable about human behavior across the life course; the range of social systems in which
people live; and the ways social systems promote or deter people in maintaining or achieving health and well-being.
Social workers apply theories and knowledge from the liberal arts to understand biological, social, cultural,
psychological, and spiritual development. The Intern:
7.1
7.1a
7.1b
Practice Behavior
Relates macro theories, models and research appropriate to client systems and circumstances.
Synthesizes and differentially applies theories of human behavior and the social environment to match client
systems’ needs and to guide social work practice.
Demonstrates conceptual understanding of the interrelatedness of different human service agencies and the
ability to use networks of agencies in program planning and as resource systems.
Learning Activity
Time Frame Completed In
EPAS Competency #8: Engage in policy practice to advance social and economic well-being and to
deliver effective social work services.
Social workers understand that policy affects service delivery, and they actively engage in policy practice. Social
workers know the history and current structures of social policies and services; the role of policy in service delivery;
and the role of practice in policy development. The Intern:
8.1
8.1a
8.1b
8.1c
8.1d
Practice Behavior
Applies policy practice skills to ensure adequate and equal treatment of mental health disorders regardless
of social or economic status.
Demonstrates an awareness and comprehension of social policies and services that impact the wellbeing of
diverse populations (identifies current policy issues and gaps that either promote, or deter, the wellbeing and
further development of diverse groups).
Promotes and advocates for social policies and program practices to advance social welfare and enhance
service delivery.
Communicates to stakeholder the implication of policies and policy change in the lives of
clients/constituents.
Applies advocacy skills that can be used to inform policymakers and influence policies that impact clients
and services.
Learning Activity
Updated: 09/2015
Time Frame Completed In
MSW Concentration Year Competencies and Practice Behaviors
EPAS Competency #9: Respond to contexts that shape practice.
Social workers are informed, resourceful, and proactive in responding to evolving organizational, community, and
societal contexts at all levels of practice. Social workers recognize that the context of practice is dynamic, and use
knowledge and skill to respond proactively. The Intern:
9.1
9.1a
9.1b
Practice Behavior
Act as change agents to promote client rights and humane laws including adequate representations in the
legal system by advocating at multiple levels.
Work collaboratively with others to effect systemic change that is sustainable.
Act as leaders and change agents to improve the accessibility, quality, and sustainability of programs
throughout the service delivery system.
Learning Activity
Time Frame Completed In
EPAS Competency #10: Engage, assess, intervene, and evaluate with individuals, families, groups,
organizations, and communities.
Social Workers demonstrate professional practice involves the dynamic and interactive processes of engagement,
assessment, intervention, and evaluation at multiple levels. Social workers have the knowledge and skills to practice
with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. Practice knowledge includes identifying,
analyzing, and implementing evidence-based interventions designed to achieve client goals; using research and
technological advances; evaluating program outcomes and practice effectiveness; developing, analyzing, advocating,
providing leadership for policies and services; and promoting social and economic justice. The Intern:
10.1
10.1a
10.1b
10.1c
Practice Behavior
Apply theoretical frameworks to the macro process of engagement, assessment, intervention and
evaluation of treatment outcomes using evidence-based practice under supervision appropriate to client
systems and circumstances.
Develops and recommends program and/or policy changes based on evaluation.
Critically applies systematic interventions that prevent problems, expand opportunities, and enhance
quality of life.
Conducts community needs assessment and designs and develops programs that address the needs of
diverse populations, and evaluates program outcomes.
10.1d
Learning Activity
Updated: 09/2015
Time Frame Completed In
MSW Concentration Year Competencies and Practice Behaviors