Alarming rates of burnout, compassion fatigue, and turnover in the social work profession have focused attention on factors influencing risk and resilience among professional social workers and, more recently, social work students. This article explores the prevalence and relevance of early trauma among social work students and describes a…

To successfully integrate Latino immigrant populations in the United States, the Social Work Grand Challenges call for increased culturally responsive training in social work education. Nevertheless, professional programs of social work education have been slow to incorporate courses that prepare students to work with Latino communities. This…

In response to the need for meaningful data about student learning in research courses, we developed and implemented the Research Knowledge Assessment instrument to measure MSW student acquisition, application, and retention of research knowledge over a 3-year period across the research curriculum. Initial findings indicated that students entered…

Integrative field seminars can help students with the difficult task of integrating learning between field and class. Are the seminars effective? We compared one cohort of MSW students who were required to attend an integrative field seminar (n = 101) with another cohort that was not offered a seminar (n = 147). We questioned each cohort at the…

This national survey of PhD faculty assessed the research preparation of entering doctoral social work students on a wide range of research knowledge and related skills. The prior literature shows that PhD programs repeat much BSW and MSW research course content. This study shows that the trend continues and has perhaps widened. PhD research…

This article describes a national sample of social work field instructors' responses to a cross-sectional survey of social workers' orientation toward integrating clients' religion and spirituality into practice and compares their responses with those of nonfield instructors. Four hundred sixty-nine social workers, including 69 MSW field…

Although statistics and research are key components of social work education, students are often described as reluctant consumers and users of statistics. Self-efficacy theory has been used to understand students' engagement with the statistical knowledge needed for practice. This quantitative study explores the relationship between self-efficacy,…

Integrated health care serves a vital role in addressing interrelated physical and behavioral health conditions, but social work graduates often lack sufficient training to work on integrated teams. We surveyed 94 deans of master's of social work programs to assess the current and planned integrated health care curricula and the aptitude of…

The purpose of this study is to better understand the relationship among factors affecting social workers' overall readiness to respond to intimate partner violence (IPV) in a sample of recent MSW graduates (N = 205). Findings suggest MSW IPV education and postgraduate IPV training are significantly associated with perceived preparedness and…

The field of social work recognizes the need to evaluate one's practice. Social work educators are mandated to prepare students to evaluate their own practices and be knowledgeable consumers of research. The goal of being competent in both of these is often challenged by the fact that many students do not initially understand the relationship…

Social work programs in the United States (N = 74) were investigated to determine strategies used for recruiting and retaining MSW students of color. Most schools had student populations exceeding 25,000 and combined BSW, MSW, and PhD programs. Data were collected using a Graduate Recruitment and Retention Scale with corresponding and acceptably…

For this study of social work degree programs, data were drawn from the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) website, the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education (GASE) website, and the websites of 841 U.S. social work programs, including the 763 programs accredited (or in candidacy for accreditation) by CSWE when these data were…

Most master of social work (MSW) programs provide minimal education or training on suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention despite that the majority of social workers encounter suicidal clients during their professional careers. This study describes the development, implementation, and evaluation of a course on suicide in an MSW program.…

Recent policy shifts in health care have created opportunities for social workers to provide services in integrated primary care and behavioral health settings. However, traditionally prepared social workers may not have the skill set necessary to meet practice demands. This article describes a behavioral health workforce initiative that trains…

Within the last decade, there has been a significant shift in the field of social work toward competency-based education. This article details the use of the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) Adapted for Social Work Performance Rating Scale. We used the measure to evaluate specific practice competencies among students (n = 33)…