From the Editor—Integrity vs. Despair

This is my next-to-last editorial as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Social Work Education. As I approached writing this editorial, I found myself reflecting on Erikson’s eighth and final stage of psychosocial development, Ego Integrity vs. Despair (Perry, Ruggiano, Shtompel, & Hassevoort, 2015). For those of you, like me, who may have had little interest in such hypothetical constructs as social work students, this stage of development involves reflecting on one’s history, accomplishments, and failures. Success at this stage leads to feelings of wisdom, while failure leads to regret and despair. Have I had a successful tenure as editor-in-chief of JSWE? When the “ink” is dry on the next, and my final, issue, it will be the readership of the journal who will be in the best position to evaluate the success of my efforts.

I have worked, along with the Editorial Advisory Board, Reviewers, and CSWE staff, to steer this journal in the direction of being a useful source of information for social work educators. Sometimes my efforts to improve the quality of the journal’s offerings have worked well, but at other times, I have felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the tasks involved in editorial duties. If I have had some measure of success, it is due in large part to the excellence of submissions to the journal. In addition, it takes a village to produce a scholarly journal, and any amount of success is certainly not mine alone.

Thus, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank the members, past and present, of the Editorial Advisory Board who have helped me reflect on the direction for the journal. I also want to express my profound gratitude to the CSWE staff and the production staff at Taylor & Francis, without whom it would not be possible to publish this journal. I want to offer a special shout-out to the reviewers who often see both promise and pitfalls in submitted manuscripts that I would otherwise miss. Perhaps most importantly, I want to thank the authors of manuscripts who submit their hard work to this journal knowing that only about one-third of submissions are accepted and that even then, the lag to production can be lengthy.

I am very optimistic about leaving this journal in capable hands. I would like to encourage readers to consider applying for available slots on the Editorial Advisory Board during the April call for volunteers. We also issue periodic calls for additional reviewers and I encourage readers to submit a letter of interest and CV; the volume of submissions seems to be increasing rapidly, and we can use your critical eyes to help the journal make decisions and help reviewers to improve their manuscripts. And finally, we are still in need of evidence for social work education (Yaffe, 2013), so I will continue to encourage my colleagues to continue to evaluate pedagogical interventions and to share their findings with the rest of us via submissions to this journal. We need more well-designed research and rigorous evidence to improve social work education.

In this issue

Volume 55, issue 3 of JSWE offers a collection of conceptual essays, empirical studies, evaluations of teaching innovations, two teaching notes, and one research note. Our first conceptual essay, by Reamer (“Social Work Education in a Digital World: Technology Standards for Education and Practice”), discusses new standards for use issued jointly by CSWE, NASW, ASWB, and other professional organizations and their implications for social work education. Next, Bentley, Mancini, Jacob, and McLeod (“Teaching Social Work Research Through the Lens of Social Justice, Human Rights, and Diversity”) offer ideas and an annotated bibliography for applying a distinct lens of social justice, human rights, and diversity in teaching research methods in social work. A third essay, by Skrzypek, Diebold, Kim, and Krause (“Mentoring Connections: Implementing a Student–Alumni Mentor Program in Social Work”), describes the development and implementation of a program that combines aspects of academic and workplace mentoring to provide students with a professional mentor and fosters on-going connects and opportunities for involvement for alumni. Nicotera (“Social Justice and Social Work, A Fierce Urgency: Recommendations for Social Work Social Justice Pedagogy”) proposes the Circle of Insight framework as a tool to critically examine learning from social justice courses; transform social justice social work pedagogy; and re-define social justice in social work. Finally, Thibeault (“Understanding Indigenous Culture Through Service Learning and Cultural Immersion”) explores “cultural service immersion” as transformational learning to produce greater understanding of the breadth of Indigenous people’s culture, increase skills and cultural sensitivity, and, ultimately, increase ally support for Indigenous social work students.

There are seven empirical papers in this issue. Slaughter and Hoefer (“The Impact of Internships on Recruiting and Retaining Mental Health Workers: Views From Students and Their Supervisors”) use content analysis of interviews with BSW and MSW level students and field instructors to explore factors attracting students to careers in mental health. Wike and colleagues (“Newly Educated MSW Social Workers’ Use of Evidence-Based Practice and Evidence-Supported Interventions: Results From an Online Survey”) explored how well recent social work graduates are able to incorporate Evidence-Based Practice content into their practice. The researchers used an online survey to examine factors associated with increased implementation and offer suggestions for related social work curricula. Yamada, Wenzel, DeBonis, Fenwick, and Holguin (“Experiences of Collaborative Behavioral Health-Care Professionals: Implications for Social Work Education and Training”) explored provider perspectives on interprofessional collaboration in two health-care initiatives, one focused on provider collaboration and the other on service access and organization-level collaboration in designated neighborhoods. Analysis of transcripts from a forum involving both groups were used to develop recommendations for high-quality collaborative health-care service provision, social work curricula, and workforce training. Next, Jensen, Brigham, and Rosenfeld (“A Psychometric Analysis of Field Evaluation Instruments Designed to Measure Students’ Generalist-Level Social Work Competencies”) used confirmatory factor analysis to assess the psychometric properties of a field evaluation instrument designed to measure students’ generalist-level social work competencies. The results, which demonstrated reliability and validity of the instrument, have implications for using five-point response options in such instruments and suggest implications for future research.

Continuing with empirical papers, Kourgiantakis, Bogo, and Sewell (“Practice Fridays: Using Simulation to Develop Holistic Competence”) used qualitative methods to examine student responses to a simulation curriculum designed to prepare MSW students in holistic competencies prior to field learning. Students reported increased knowledge, skills, professional judgment, and self-awareness and attributed these increases to observed practice, focused feedback, and guided reflection. Dorsett, Larmar, and Clark (“Transformative Intercultural Learning: A Short-Term International Study Tour”) adopt a robust qualitative approach to evaluate a 12-day cultural immersion experience with preparatory classroom teaching. The authors conclude that such experiences can significantly contribute to transformation in students’ capacity to challenge cultural stereotypes and critically examine the interplay between disadvantage, context, and socio-political structures. Finally, Tufford, Bogo, Katz, Lee, and Ramjattan (“Reporting Suspected Child Maltreatment: Educating Social Work Students in Decision Making and Maintaining the Relationship”) developed a workshop for BSW and MSW students focused on decision making and the therapeutic relationship in the mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect. Using qualitative analysis of student responses to case vignettes, the authors examine cognitive and affective processes affecting student decision-making.

This issue of JSWE wraps up with two teaching notes and a research note. Shaw (“Teaching Note—A Call for Including Theories of Evaluation in Program Evaluation Courses Taught in Schools of Social Work”) argues for incorporating theories of evaluation into social work courses on evaluation and offers specific ideas for incorporating this content into MSW and doctoral level curricula. Katz (“Teaching Note—Using Simulation to Teach Advanced Competencies in Mindfulness to Social Work Students”) describes how simulation-based learning and objective structured clinical examinations can be used to shift an MSW level course on advanced mindfulness techniques from a focus on content to one on competence. Teater and Lopez-Humphreys (“Research Note—Is Social Work Education a Form of Social Work Practice?”) report on the analysis of interviews with social work educators about the inclusion of social work education as a form of practice and argue for renewed consideration of whether social work education counts as social work practice.