Message to Students
You have reached an exciting milestone in your human services education–beginning your fieldwork! Internships often bring both feelings of enthusiasm as well as feelings of trepidation. We are excited to accompany you as you begin your professional journey.
As a human services professional of over twenty years, my early fieldwork days are long gone but definitely not forgotten. My internships provided me with some of the strongest lessons I learned in my career and influenced my work as a social worker and as an instructor. I am passionate about preparing students adequately to do this work as well as supporting students as they gain experience and confidence. I have kept a list in my head of all of the “We should really be talking to students about….” topics that I feel are important to discuss as students are developing their professional identity. The result of that list is this book. We developed this text as an Open Educational Resource (OER) with the belief that expensive textbooks represent a critical barrier to students. Also, current textbooks tend to get outdated quickly, and with this format, we can continuously update materials as needed. We are happy to share our resources with others, and as an open text other instructors can adapt our materials as needed for their courses.
The guiding principle for this text was to keep issues of equity front and center. We have not confined discussions of diversity, equity, and inclusion to just one chapter, although we do have a chapter focused solely on working across differences. We hope you find that discussions of equity form an important part of each and every chapter as we discuss the issues of equity and inclusion inherent in the chapter’s topic.
We have also included activities at the end of each chapter to help you reflect on your learning and incorporate the material into your professional experience. The activities include journal prompts, self-care activities, class discussion questions, and reflection assignments. We hope you find these useful to help you navigate the topics throughout the text.
It is important to note that this text is still a work in progress, and we want your feedback! If you notice errors or omissions in the content, please share your impressions. We believe students are a valuable source of critical feedback as we work to create inclusive and equitable materials.
