The First Six Practicum Partnership Program Demonstration Sites

Background
The first six demonstration sites of the Practicum Partnership Program (PPP) involved 11 graduate social work programs nationwide. The sites included:

1. University at Albany School of Social Welfare
2. University of Houston Graduate School of Social Work
3. Hunter College School of Social Work/Brookdale Center on Aging
4. University of Michigan School of Social Work
5. The University of California at Berkeley School of Social Welfare partnered with
6. San Francisco State University School of Social Work
7. University of Southern California
8. San Jose State University School of Social Work, and Partners in Care Foundation partnered with
9. Schools of Social Work and Social Welfare at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA),
10. California State University, Long Beach and
11. California State University, Los Angeles

Evaluation
To assess the effectiveness of the PPP model, pre- and post-tests were administered to students, and background and impact data was collected and analyzed on each participating social work program. Specific educational interventions used at the PPPs were also collected and analyzed during the third and last year of the grants.

Evaluation Results
Students
The majority of PPP students were female (84%), ethnically diverse (more diverse than Council on Social Work Education students nationally), were composed of second-year MSW students (64%), and attended school full-time (89%). More than half of the students took aging courses prior to PPP enrollment (52%), and 74% had prior volunteer or work experience with older persons. Students made statistically significant gains in aging knowledge and skill sets in working with older adults, and sustained a high level of interest in continuing a career in aging. Overall, students reported high satisfaction with the PPP experience (94%).

Graduates
Over 400 students were trained during the three years of the grant and one year following the grant. Four months post-graduation, 81% were employed, with 80% of these employed in the field of aging. The top 5 work settings of those employed at 4 months were: 1) hospitals; 2) care/case management; 3) social service agency; 4) mental health; and 5) public policy/advocacy.

One year after they received their MSW degrees, 93% of students were employed, with 80% of these employed in aging. A greater percentage of graduates were working in the same top four categories, while public policy was replaced by long-term care as the fifth category.

PPP graduates were found to be active in professional activities, with 76% as members of the National Association of Social Workers, 45% as members of aging-related organizations, and 38% as involved in leadership activities (members of boards and committees, presenters at conferences, teaching, mentoring).

Among those surveyed, 98% found the PPP experience highly relevant and valuable to their current professional work. They identified two PPP components, rotations and seminars, as important factors when integrating knowledge and skill. Rotations were perceived as the most important PPP component as they provided varied and rich learning about diverse services, older populations, and intervention modalities. In addition, graduates related their employment in the field of aging to PPP networks, career development activities, and knowledge/skill gained in field education.

Signs of success: Products and progress from the demonstration sites
Essential Components
Principal investigators of the PPP sites collectively identified Essential Components of the PPP model in 2002, after two years of implementing their respective programs. These components are critically important to educating graduate social work students to become competent geriatric social work practitioners, and include: (i) University-community partnerships, (ii) Competency-driven education, (iii) An expanded role for field instructors, (iv) Focused recruitment of social work expertise in aging, and (v) Integrated experiences across multiple programs, populations, interventions, and disciplines through rotations.

Each of the sites implemented the Essential Components, but no two sites implemented them in the same way, indicating that the model can adapt to different settings. Differences occurred in consortium structure and roles, recruitment strategies used, how competencies were used, types of rotations, field instructor training and roles, and additional program elements, such as career support.

Competency Scale Development
The PPP Geriatric Social Work Competency Scale, the first of its kind, was developed to measure student outcomes via social work skills, and was used in the student pre- and post-tests. Faculty experts in aging nationwide participated in the development of the Scale, giving it considerable face validity. Student comments on the Competency Scale validated the relevance of the items to their training experiences. Upon testing, the Scale was found to have good reliability; it was revised to a shorter, user-friendly version with fewer items and has been widely disseminated to the social work educational community.

Sustainability of the Demonstration Sites
During the first year of post-Hartford grants, all sites sustained the essential components of the PPP. The level of sustainability across sites varied with small changes occurring such as fewer consortium functions, fewer seminars, less capacity for students in the PPP, and fewer students in a PPP. Resources to support the PPP demonstration programs and students were provided by the schools themselves, community agencies, and endowments from a private foundation.

Benefits of the Practicum Partnership Program (PPP)
The PPP has long-term positive benefits for each of these constituents:

Community Agencies: Improves collaboration amongst community-based services, increases access to resources and produces highly trained professionals to enter the field.

Universities: Enhances relations between community and school settings and allows schools to update curriculum based on real-world experiences.

Social Work profession: Creates opportunities for leadership by responding to a significant demographic shift and focuses national attention on social work as an essential field of practice.

Older adults: Increases the number of social workers skilled at care coordination and navigating systems of care so older adults get the care they need from support networks.