Learning is Life: Thoughts on Academic Social Work

by Kathleen J. Tunney, MSW, LCSW, PhD

     Academic social work. Is this really a field of practice? While some may question this designation, here I will present reasons for my decades-long commitment to this field of practice, particularly in the teaching of basic counseling and advanced clinical skills at BSW and MSW levels.

     Of course, we do not treat students as clients. However, academic social work has much in common with other more traditional fields of practice, as noted below.    

• Reframing beliefs: In mental health practice (the field with which I am most familiar), we help clients find new ways of viewing their lives and identifying new directions and choices with the help of a committed, non-judgmental mentor.  That is also what good teachers do—they help students reframe closely-held beliefs toward people different from themselves, shedding light on a wider world consistent with social work ethics.  
• Trying out what you’ve learned: As clinicians, we often assign “homework,” sending clients into the world to try out ideas discovered in therapy.  Similarly, as educators, we send students into field placement, applying what they learn in classroom and lab. 
• Encountering uncomfortable truths: Social work educators know students often face their own mental health, substance abuse, or trauma issues as their education progresses. Indeed, many of us have worked with students who chose the profession specifically because they have been injured in some way. They aspire to understand and heal their injuries by arming themselves with professional knowledge and skills to help others. As educators, we confront these issues with students when their history or current circumstances interfere with professional responsibilities.
• Making referrals: Neither clinicians nor educators can fulfill all the interpersonal needs of our target population, so we make referrals to community or university counseling services or other resources. Educators aim to remove obstacles to students’ professional success in school; clinicians aim to remove obstacles to clients’ personal success.  
• Being in the here and now:  In teaching clinical skills, I utilized simulated clients to train students. Simulated clients (SCs), originally used in medical education, have been adapted over decades to human services. SCs are trained to portray social work scenarios, interacting with students and giving feedback on students’ response to client needs. SCs provide greater authenticity than is possible when students play the roles of “client” and “counselor,” coming as close as possible to the messy real world of practice. Student feedback suggests that this experience is both scary and invaluable to their learning. Students are often exposed to their own vulnerabilities, triggered by issues presented by the SCs. With the help of the academic clinical instructor and the SCs, students work through their weaknesses and are given validation for their strengths, also analogous to the world of clinical practice.

     In all fields, learning is life, and growth, and change. Educators enhance students’ personal and professional growth, and by extension, the lives of clients they serve. I can think of no greater impact than this.

With 30 years of teaching and ten years of clinical experience, Dr. Kathleen Tunney’s career emphasis has been on mental health and family treatment. In teaching basic counseling skills and advanced clinical methods at graduate and undergraduate levels, she focused on experiential learning methods using simulated clients.