Karen Schwartz

Thinking through Quality in Field Education: Integrating Alternative and Traditional Learning Opportunities

In this article, we look at two intersecting imperatives in social work and university education and how they shape our thinking about quality in field education. We will explore how practices of new managerialism and the desire for diversity come into conflict when trying to assess the quality of field‐based learning. Drawing on findings from a pilot research project we completed at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, we propose that it would be beneficial for Canadian schools of social work to rely less on assessing quality in terms of standards and specifications and more on a transformative notion of quality that speaks more clearly to empowering students and enhancing their knowledge and skills.

Canadian and EU social work students in a cross-cultural program: What they learned from the experience

A four-year student exchange project took place between Canadian and EU universities that engaged in a reciprocal agreement between social work students, social service agencies and universities. Sixty-four students completed their practicum through this program. The article gives an account of the students’ learning experiences and their evaluation of this program. It concludes with a discussion of their learning experiences in cross-cultural exchanges and future recommendations for enhancing international social work field exchanges.

Preparing students for international exchanges: Canadian/EU experiences

Utilizing pre- and post-departure student evaluations and data derived from exchange coordinators in Canada and the European Union, this paper documents and evaluates formal and informal preparation of students for an international social work practicum. While students felt that completing an international practicum was a rich learning experience, good preparation is essential. Differences between the Canadian and European students’ thoughts about the preparation they received are highlighted. It concludes with implications for social work international field education.

Community Policing—A Shared Responsibility: A Voice-Centered Relational Method Analysis of a Police/Youth-of-Color Dialogue

Racial discrimination in policing and its effect on police/minority youth relations were explored in a federally funded Canadian race relations initiative, using semistructured dialogue and voice-centered relational data analysis. Participants were frontline police officers and male youth of color. For enhancing communication between the groups, findings emphasized ongoing, face-to-face interaction. Substantial related concerns were the need for trust, respect, self-preservation, information sharing, and improved police/minority youth relations. These were understood and highlighted as embedded within a system of ruling relations in the participants’ sociocultural context. Implications of these issues for police relations with racialized youth and their communities are discussed.

Community-campus partnerships, collective impact, and poverty reduction

Abstract This article describes a unique Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)-funded project in which a community–campus partnership is making progress in moving the needle on complex issues such as poverty. The project identified various models of community campus partnerships that help leverage collective impact efforts in poverty reduction. One model involves a center for community–university research, while others revolve around champions in the community or university who spearhead the initiatives and leverage successful partnerships into research activities. Concurrently, the campus and community partners have engaged in research with a goal of having an impact on poverty reduction. The models are examined in terms of components of collective impact: a common agenda, shared measurement, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication, and a backbone organization. Factors were identified that support and impede collective impact, such as the importance of a strong backbone organization, and vulnerability to personnel changes.

Toward Evidence-Based Practice: Variations on a Theme

Towards Evidenced-Based Practice is a collection of Dr Fischer’s previously published articles and book chapters, spanning his illustrious career to date and divided by decades. It is a history of the profession’s development towards evidence-based practice and the ‘evolutionary development of social work vocabulary and social work knowledge’ (p. 141). I remember reading Joel Fischer’s article, which he includes as the preface of this book, ‘Is casework effective?’, while studying for my BSW. Very controversial at the time, it convinced me that research and practice had to be intertwined. The first part of the book encompasses the 1970s, which he calls the foundation years, where he attempted to nudge the profession away from viewing casework through a psychodynamic lens to considering the concept of evidence-based practice. The second part spans the 1980s, building on the foundations and reexamining the issues he raised in the 1970s. Part Three covers the 1990s which connects the past with the future, while further consolidating the changes he discussed in the previous chapters and incorporating newer methodologies. Lastly, Part Four spans the twenty-first century and considers evidence-based practice (EBP). Evidence and effectiveness are defined throughout the book from Western scientific traditions, with randomized control trials being considered the gold standard. In Part One Dr Fischer makes the case that professional social workers assumed that their interventions were effective and that this assumption was based on the theories popular at the time, such as psychodynamic and social casework. These theories enabled social workers to diagnose their client’s problems, write in-depth social histories but did not adequately instruct practitioners in how to induce change. He then sets a framework for analyzing and comparing clinical theories. He emphasizes the importance of assessing whether a particular theory is relevant for addressing the phenomenon that social workers face, is consistent with social work values, can be validated empirically, can be taught as part of a social work curriculum and lastly can provide specific instructions for intervention. He ends with a description of how to examine the effectiveness of one’s practice by merging A–B–A–B design with single case design so that the research can be generalized. In each part of the book, the value of knowledge from a positivist epistemological perspective is restated using the language of that decade. As well, Dr Fischer presents his ideas about how to effectively integrate research into the social work curriculum so that social workers can be better prepared for empirical practice. He documents what