Field Rotations

General Description
Rotations, or placing students in multiple agency settings, have been used to a limited degree in social work agencies (primarily large hospitals), but are used extensively and successfully in other disciplines. The traditional model of field education assigns students to one agency and one supervisor over the course of a year, which typically results in their working with one specific population of older adults. By contrast, the HPPAE rotational model assigns students to two or more field settings during the yearlong internship period, giving students a more comprehensive and dynamic view of the field.

The rotational model for students in aging can be implemented in many different ways, but there are some "musts." Each rotation plan must be:

• Consistent with an MSW program's educational philosophy and objectives
• Structurally viable for the characteristics of the social work educational program and agencies in the community aging network
• Responsive to students' learning needs

Benefits of a Rotational Model
There are several reasons why the HPPAE rotational model enhances student education. Students gain:

• Exposure to the diversity of older adult clients. They learn that there is no "typical older person" because older people differ in mental and physical health status, activity and functioning levels, educational levels, economic status, ethnicity, social support networks, and personal care needs. This helps students counteract cultural stereotypes and gives them a richer sense of the many ways that social workers can work with older adults, from organizing health promotion to providing grief counseling at end of life.
  
  
• Improved mastery of today's complex health-care and social-service systems.
  By working across different settings, students gain a more sophisticated understanding of how the health-care system works. That is, how services and care are provided and connected via a complex service network, each with its own funding sources and definitions of eligibility criteria, benefits, and administrative structures.
  
  
• Greater understanding of and exposure to roles of multiple service providers.
  Two trends, the increasing specialization of the medical field and the longevity of older adults, require geriatric social workers to understand the roles of each professionnurses, doctors, rehabilitation therapists, psychologists, lawyersas members of an interdisciplinary team. Students also work with multiple field supervisors and instructors, exposing them to different leadership and supervisory skills.
  
  
• An informed perspective on policy reform.
  Strains on the aging-care system, from the workforce shortage to access and cost challenges, require policy reform on many levels. Students who have worked across different settings are more likely to have a richer analysis of reforms that are needed, and of the systems involved, equipping them to play leadership roles in policy debates and initiatives.