Reciprocity of community field work practicum: The case of open community placement in social work education

Field work is considered to be the most vital part of social work education across the globe. The element of field work is visible in almost all curriculum frameworks, even though there are variations in the credit and methods allotted for it. Generally field work practicum in India consists of observation visits, concurrent field work, summer placement and block placement. Open Community Placement (OCP) is an Indian model of concurrent field work which is widely practiced in the country apart from the institutional placement. Rural villages are preferred to be the potential locations for the student`s placement for concurrent field work as it facilitates the trainee to understand the magnitude of rural problems, possible intervention strategies and working models. There is higher demand of trained manpower for working with the rural issues in India. This necessitates social work profession to engage their young trainees proactively with the rural issues. The trainees placed in open communities are closely works with the local institutions, stakeholders and clients under the guidance of a faculty supervisor. Different methods of social work are being practiced during the span of placement. Present paper is based on the experience of placing students in rural community for fieldwork. This paper tries to highlight the reciprocal advantages which students, faculties and community had through these placements. Information were collected from student trainees (those who are undergoing training and completed), alumnus, social work educators (who guide the students for Open Community Placement) and from the community. Two school of social work which practicing Open Community Placement (OCP) was selected for the analysis. The analysis shows higher implications of Open Community Placement (OCP) in Social Work education and practice.