Perceptions of Actors Involved in Social Work Field Placement at the West University of Timisoara

Field placement is an essential component of social work education. The field placement program of the Social Work Department from the West University of Timisoara is regarded as equally important with theoretical knowledge. Field placement allows students to have a direct contact with the working environment, beneficiaries, intervention methods, within organizations but also in the community. This study aims to assess the field placement program with focus on the perceptions of the involved parties: the students from the Bachelors Program and their field education supervisor. The results indicated similar perceptions among students (second and third year students) regarding field placement. Positive influences were found, across the matches between the category/categories of beneficiaries of the organization according to the student's interest and their attendance during placement, the existence of opportunities for learning and participation, but also in terms of frequency and quality of interactions between student-beneficiary.


Keywords: field placement, supervisor, student