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Transition from In-Person to Online: A Virtual Partnership Project
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all spheres of life—social, economic, educational, political, cultural, spiritual, and environmental. Internationally, adjustments have had to be made in service provision in adherence to public health guidelines, and post-secondary institutions have developed strategies to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 on student learners (Reimers & Schleicher, 2020). In order to ensure safety for students, staff, and faculty, and in response to local public health guidelines on physical distancing, Canadian post-secondary institutions rapidly shifted to virtual platforms and operations for teaching, student learning, and research (Bazinet et al., 2020; Wall, 2020). This transition affected all aspects of social work education programs, including student field placements and related field education activities (Canadian Association of Social Work Education [CASWE], 2020).
Field education in Canada was in crisis prior to the global COVID-19 pandemic as a result of multiple intersecting factors (Ayala et al., 2017; Drolet, 2020; McConnell, 2016). Field education directors and coordinators struggle to manage field education while experiencing financial cutbacks, restructuring, and limited agency capacity to accept students, all of which leads to fewer opportunities for student field placements (Ayala et al., 2017; McConnell, 2016). Additionally, the increase in the number of social work education programs and student enrollments, which resulted in increased competition for social work placements for students, has contributed to the crisis in Canadian field education (Ayala et al., 2017; Drolet, 2020; McConnell, 2016). COVID-19 created further challenges for field education and student learning with the cancellation of practica, which are an essential component of social work education as they provide students with direct practice experience (Ayala et al., 2017; Bogo, 2015; Reimers & Schleicher, 2020). In some cases, this has caused social work field education programs to transition to online virtual field placements and learning (Reimers & Schleicher, 2020).
Prior to the global pandemic, an innovative community of practice and research initiative was established to bring together a wide range of social work education collaborators and practice partners to assist in addressing the challenges in field education (Ayala et al., 2017; Garthwait, 2015). In Canada, the Transforming the Field Education Landscape (TFEL) partnership was established in 2019 with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Hosted at...