
Info for Field & Community Partners
Support for New & Continuing Field Partners
Field Education at Rutgers School of Social Work is built on a network field agencies and dedicated professionals across the country. Students benefit from working with our field teams through hands-on experience and lessons in what it means to be a professional social worker. Agencies can benefit from having an extra, eager set of hands to help move their organizations goal forward.

Field Agencies: Frequently Asked Questions
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- Agencies selected for field sites are drawn from a wide range of agencies and reflect the diverse settings where professional social workers are employed. The School requires that agencies have a clear definition of the social work role, and that the function be supported in the agency so that students will be able to acquire and strengthen their identification as social workers. There must be appropriate assignments and a qualified MSW with available time to supervise a student, along with a commitment to teaching the core competencies and practice behaviors outlined in the learning contract and evaluation.
- MSW Supervisor/Field Instructor –Field Instructors are required to have an MSW and two-years post graduate experience Field Instructors will review and comment on students’ process recordings and are required to meet with students for 1 hour each week for supervision. Field Instructors may be involved with the student on a daily basis, or students may also work with a task supervisor.
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Each student is assigned a Field Liaison, who interacts with the student and the agency. The Field Liaison will make at least one remote or in-person visit each semester to meet with the Field Instructor and the Student.
- Regular contact will be provided between students, field instructors, and online program staff to ensure the field placement is proceeding well.
- You will also receive access to our Field Instructor newsletter and webinars related to supervision topics.
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No, you do not need to be SIFI certified to begin the interview process. We do highly recommend the certification and will offer it to you once your intern begins placement.
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Interns can help with counseling sessions, completing intakes, case management, outreach, researching best-practices, creating curriculum, and more.
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Yes
Resources
Continuing Education
Rutgers School of Social Work's Office of Continuing Education is one of the largest University-based programs of its kind in the nation and serves professionals in New Jersey, New York and beyond. CE offers over 400 programs each year, as well as 12 certificate programs all lead by expert instructors.
Community Resources
As part of our mission, Rutgers School of Social Work provides resources for our global community of social work practitioners and allied professionals.

Community News

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Rupa M. Khetarpal, Associate Professor of Teaching and Director of the Certificate on Interpersonal Violence and Trauma (C-IVT), explains the importance of observing this month and how social workers and allied professionals can support survivors and their loved ones this month and beyond.

Researchers have long suspected that neighborhoods can be a source of risk or protection for child well-being. A new Rutgers study supports this assumption and finds that when parents feel higher levels of stress or hopelessness about their surroundings, they may have a more difficult time caring for their children. “To get the best outcomes for kids and to elicit the best parenting, families need a safe, stable, stimulating environment, both at home and in the surrounding community,” said Katherine Marcal, an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Social Work and coauthor of the study published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect.