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Like many of us, remembers clearly when the social restrictions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Suddenly another crisis was added to the already fraught challenge of finding meaningful experiential learning (practicum) experiences for students in schools of social work across Canada.

“When COVID happened, hundreds of field education placements across the country just disappeared overnight,” says Drolet, PhD, researcher and professor at University of Calgary Social Work’s .

Field education, which provides experiential learning under the guidance of registered social workers and field instructors, is the heart of social work education. Every undergraduate and graduate social work student needs one or two practicum experiences to graduate.

When so many in-person placements across the country disappeared, Drolet came to the realization that the profession needed to pivot, as did her latest (SSHRC)-funded project, the ambitious, five-year,  (TFEL) partnership.

Long-standing assumptions about how students learn in the field were set aside, creating space for new models, new tools and new ways of working together. Over the next seven years, TFEL would go beyond that initial response and provide new models and sustainable solutions to the profession’s field education crisis.

New solutions for social work’s experiential-learning crisis 

Demand for practicum placements across Canada and internationally has surged as enrolment at social work schools has increased, but the number of available, high-quality placements has not kept pace. On the other side, agencies and other organizations are under pressure from rising service demands, staff burnout and limited resources, leaving fewer practitioners with the capacity to supervise students. 

Today’s students are also likely to be juggling multiple commitments including work and family demands. All of this has meant that the traditional model — one student placed full-time with one supervisor — has become increasingly difficult to sustain, leading to a widening gap between the central role practicums play in professional training and the system’s ability to deliver it at scale.

The need for new approaches led Drolet to apply for a  which looked to unite a broad network of academic, community and professional partners across Canada and internationally. The goal of the $1.98-million project was always to support every accredited social work program in the country by providing their field programs with new ideas and approaches: advancing innovative practicum models adaptable to different contexts and to strengthen the integration of research and practice in field education.

Digital storytelling: Making learning visible

One of TFEL’s most innovative streams focused on , using creative media to deepen the students’ learning while simultaneously creating a knowledge mobilization program that saw them produce 30 digital stories, as well as 27 podcasts, 73 newsletters and 18 infographics to share what they’d learned.

Innovative tools like the , created in partnership with ԰������’s , focused on environmental “green social work” initiatives and community stories reaching more than 1,600 people.

“The aim of the digital stories was to create a way for students to reflect deeply about their learning and field education,” explains Drolet. “And I think with the digital story, it allows for it to be shared. So, it’s a little bit different than some other assignments, because often it’s only the instructor who gets to read or assess that work.”

Students as partners in the transformation of field education 

That shift, from private assignment to shared learning, was both intentional and relational.

As they produced their podcast scripts, the students worked in groups, reviewing one another’s work and helping to shape the direction of projects together.

In the end this relational approach extended beyond the structure of specific assignments and became part of the project’s DNA. As the TFEL project evolved students were not just participants, they were partners.

“If we want to have that transformation, we have to trust that students can also be our partners in helping to lead,” Drolet says. “And I would say, through TEFL, creating the change that we want to see in the field.” 

For the TFEL project, this meant that, rather than simply recommending change as an academic exercise, the project tested it in real time.

“We said, ‘OK, we think that students can work together in groups and have a group practicum, so, let’s do it…'" says Drolet, "We think digital storytelling might have a role in field. Well, rather than waiting for someone else, like rather than us recommending others to do it, let’s do it ourselves and then we’ll document it and share it.’” 

National study: Rethinking how practicum works 

At the heart of TFEL was a large-scale national study with multiple sub-projects examining new ways that field education could evolve to meet growing demand and changing student realities.

The project brought together collaborators from across Canada and eventually internationally to explore more sustainable approaches to practicum learning that would address the challenges of sustainable meaningful practicum opportunities.

Through surveys, interviews, roundtable discussion sessions and collaborative research, the team developed an inventory of “promising, wise and innovative practices” that programs can adapt to their own contexts.

While this work is a crucial part of TFEL’s seven-year legacy, the way in which the work was done was also very important. TFEL brought together field co-ordinators and directors, researchers, students, and partners across institutions, which shifted the inherent competition between schools for practicum positions, to a culture of collaboration.

“I think with the partnership approach, it has been helpful to bring people together and have conversations,” says Drolet. “We can learn from one another and exchange the practices that work well.”

That relational, collaborative approach, strengthened during the pandemic, is now one of the project’s most lasting contributions.

Applied practice research: Bridging the gap 

The third pillar of TFEL focused on applied practice research, challenging the long-standing divide between research and practice, not to mention research on field education itself.

“It was really understanding that the perceived gap between research and practice is almost imagined,” says Drolet. “We need to be aware that what happens in practice can inform the research questions that we ask and how research itself can help to also influence practice.”

As the project progressed, students once again played a central role in that process as they worked alongside faculty, postdoctoral scholars and peers at different levels. They helped design studies, analyzed data, presented their work publicly, and contributed to publications, including ’s open-access journal, Transformative Social Work, founded by Drolet.

“You know, students have the opportunity to help identify research questions, think about what the approach would look like, work together in groups … and then different members of the team would be involved in different sub projects depending on their areas of interest,” Drolet explains.

For many of the students involved in the TFEL project, the experience has been life-changing. “I’ve heard from them how being involved in a partnership has really almost changed their world view and one student even told me it changed the course of their life,” Drolet says.

Building the next generation of social workers 

Looking back at the project’s seven years of hard work, this theme of student investment is a common thread through all of TFEL’s diverse impacts. The project supported 47 PhD research assistants, seven postdoctoral scholars, 157 graduate and 78 undergraduate research assistants, along with dozens of practicums, interns and visiting scholars.

Students collaborated across institutions, sometimes in different countries. They collaborated across disciplines and levels of study, where they created a learning environment that was both rigorous and deeply supportive.

“What I’ve heard from students is that that was kind of a rare opportunity to have that opportunity to learn from other students,” says Drolet, “And sometimes, to have that networking happening with other schools of social work across the country and internationally.”

A new model for the future 

Looking back, Drolet views the ambitious TFEL project as both a response to crisis and a model for long-term change. The pandemic may have forced rapid innovation, but it also revealed what was possible when students, educators and partners worked together in new ways.

“I think it is about trying to innovate and to be creative and being open to doing things in new ways, and it is important to conduct research in field education,” she says.

While TFEL has officially wrapped its seven-year term (additional time was added because of the pandemic), its influence, which extends to 37 countries across the globe, continues through ongoing publications, sustained partnerships. Drolet has also submitted a new proposal that would expand the work into a global, transdisciplinary space allowing for partnerships across disciplines that would allow for greater understanding of the complex issues facing our society.

“It is sort of like the end of a chapter,” Drolet reflects with a smile. “But we haven’t finished the book!”