ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of an educational intervention using standardized clients to simulate client experiences in order to help Master's and undergraduate level social work students learn and demonstrate child welfare skill competencies. This is a pretest/posttest one-group design. Students in the Title IV-E Child Welfare program participate in a pre-test post-test study in which each student is observed, videotaped and evaluated while interviewing and counseling a standardized client facing foster care placement both before and after a year in the IV-E program. All 45 participants conduct interviews with standardized clients at two times--at the beginning of the fall '06 semester and at the end of the spring '07 semester. The literature demonstrates that standardized clients have been utilized to measure medical students' knowledge base and assess their clinical skills for the past 30 years. This practice has not been readily integrated in social work education. Standardized clients provide an occasion for students to learn skills in a safe environment, develop and utilize practice skills, and receive feedback. The use of standardized clients can also provide an opportunity for a discussion between the social work student and the standardized client to discuss similarities and differences in their perceptions of the interviews. PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Caroline Burry, PhD FUNDING SOURCE: Title IV-E, University of Maryland, School of Social Work AMOUNT OF FUNDING: $3,000 PROJECT DATES: 2006 – present
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