Using an Interprofessional Perspective for NASW’s Technology Standard for Social Work Education
On Saturday, November 10, 2018 at 7:30 am in Dolphin, Walt Disney World Resort, Asia 3, Lobby/Third Level, I will be presenting with Drs. Melanie Sage and Nancy J. Smyth about our crowd sourced work, Social Work Educators’ Perspectives on NASW’s Technology Standard for Education, Training, and Supervision. We will be distributing printed copies of our booklet and sharing how social work educators can bring an interprofessional perspective to teaching with technology.
In 2017, new Standards for Technology in Social Work Practice were issued by NASW (and written in conjunction with CSWA, CSWE, and ASWB) to address the intersections of social work practice and technology. One of the standards (standard 4) focuses on technology for social work education, training, and supervision, while the other standards focus on the use of technology in social work practice.
After the standards came out, social work educators told us they wanted more information about how to actually use the guidance from the standards in their classrooms and universities. We (Laurel Hitchcock, Melanie Sage, and Nancy Smyth) reached out to social work educators and supervisors who have specialized knowledge of teaching and supervision with technology to provide more information related to interpretations. We used Google Docs to create a place for contributors to share their comments for how the educational standards should look in practice, the best practices related to standards, and the ways educators and supervisors can aspire to best practices related to technology. Then, we edited the ideas and comments by all the contributors into a cohesive document to provide guidance for educators.
To help disseminate this work, the University at Buffalo’s School of Social Work agreed to publish it as a booklet, and we distributed this for the first time in at the 2018 Social Work Distance Education Conference in San Antonio, TX.
Here you will find a link to the digital copy of crowd-sourced technology standards: https://tinyurl.com/SWEdTechStandards
You can access a copy of presentation slides here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17MUD49n79hkwzlqcq20cvtt5IZJc9Rge/view?usp=sharing
Here is our conference proposal with learning objectives:
By the end of the session, participants will:
Objective 1: Demonstrate an understanding of information and tools that educators can use to guide curricular development of learning approaches and assessment strategies to achieve practice outcomes around interprofessional communication with digital and social technologies.
Objective 2: Demonstrate an understanding of how the NASW Technology Standards inform social work education, training, and supervision.
The interprofessional education competencies, as outlined by Interprofessional Education Collaborate (2016), were developed to help educators across the health professions in the “professional and institutional curricular development of learning approaches and assessment strategies to achieve productive outcomes (p. 8).” These competencies include practice behaviors that range from being able to understand and synthesize information from other professions into one’s practice to choosing “communication tools and techniques, including information systems and communication technologies, to facilitate discussions and interactions that enhance team function (p. 13).”
The authors of this proposal applied an interprofessional and collaborative perspective to address an important professional and educational need related to the incorporation of technology in social work education. In 2017, new Standards for Technology in Social Work Practice (NASW, 2017) were issued to address the intersections of social work practice and technology. Standard number 4 focused on technology for social work education, training and supervision. Hearing a call for more guidance on how social work educators can apply these new standards, the members of this presentation reached out to social work educators and supervisors with specialized knowledge of teaching and supervising with technology to create additional interpretations for Standard 4, Social Work Education and Supervision. Participants contributed practice wisdom and research from across a variety of fields regarding best practices for teaching with technology. This panel will discuss both the content and development process of these alternative interpretations, specifically how the standards can be supported by incorporating digital and social technologies from other professions such as instructional design and healthcare professions.
Collaborative cloud-based document sharing was used to crowdsource (obtain input of a number of people online), which allowed us to co-create, co-edit, and get rapid feedback on the document over the course of a month. This innovative approach offered social work educators a voice and an opportunity to advocate for a broader understanding about the role of technology is social work education and supervision. The document is not meant to replace the NASW Technology Standards interpretations, but rather offers expanded and supplementary interpretations. For instance, although the NASW Technology Standards emphasizes educators who are utilizing or currently specifically teaching about technology, our crowdsourced interpretations widen this scope to address the need for ALL social work educators to have some basic understanding and competence in the use of technology and its impact on our field. Another goal of this document is to adjust the interpretations from a mostly risk-averse and micro-practice focus to a perspective that also acknowledges the potential strengths of technology in work at micro to macro levels of practice and social work education, supervision, and continuing education.
As part of this panel, we will share both the content and development process of these supplementary interpretations to the NASW Technology Standard on Education and Supervision. The resulting crowdsourced standards were bound in to a booklet. Participants who attend this panel will receive a copy of the supplementary interpretations, and will learn more details about the crowdsource process used to draft and finalize the document, and will be invited to share their own implementation strategies that align with the guidance provided by NASW and the booklet. Additionally, the panel members will seek feedback from the participants about ways to enhance and share this document over time as our knowledge about the role of technology in education and supervision evolves.
References:
Interprofessional Education Collaborative. (2016). Core competencies for interprofessional collaborative practice: 2016 update. Washington, DC: Interprofessional Education Collaborative. Retrieved from: https://nebula.wsimg.com/2f68a39520b03336b41038c370497473?AccessKeyId=DC06780E69ED19E2B3A5&disposition=0&alloworigin=1
National Association of Social Workers. (2017). NASW, ABSW, CSWE & CSWA Standards for Technology in Social Work Practice. Washington, DC: National Association of Social Workers. Retrieved from http://www.socialworkers.org/includes/newIncludes/homepage/PRA-BRO-33617.TechStandards_FINAL_POSTING.pdf
How to cite this blog post:
Hitchcock, L.I., Sage, M. & Smyth, N.J. (2018, November 10). Using an Interprofessional Perspective for NASW’s Technology Standard for Social Work Education [Blog Post]. Retrieved from: https://laureliversonhitchcock.org/2018/11/10/cswe_techstandardspresentation/.
