05-08-06
A Vision of Fieldwork Excellence
Donna M. Costa
The Representative Assembly in 2005 charged the president of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) to develop an ad hoc committee representing members of the Commission on Education, the Commission on Practice, the Education Special Interest Section, and other recognized leaders in occupational therapy fieldwork education. The ad hoc committee's assigned task was to make recommendations for developing resources for fieldwork educators and to develop a vision for fieldwork excellence.
The ad hoc committee members were each assigned a profession to research before coming to the first meeting in February, exploring both the scope of clinical education in that profession and the process for educating and supporting clinical supervisors. We looked at the professions of nursing, pharmacy, physical therapy, psychology, speech-language pathology, social work, physician assistants, and marriage and family therapists. We also looked at the competency-based occupational therapy fieldwork model used in Canada.
Fieldwork has been often articulated as the bridge between education and practice; the committee envisions fieldwork education as a primary driver in transforming practice as we approach the centennial year 2017. Tomorrow's practitioners are today's fieldwork students, and so fieldwork is a systems change agent.
The group identified a number of resources that warrant immediate development. First, we need to develop a set of competencies for fieldwork outcomes that emphasize occupation-centered skills and professional behaviors.
Second, there needs to be a major initiative to develop training resources in contemporary foundational supervision concepts, role development, and adult learning theories. This training needs to be offered in multiple formats, maximizing use of training technologies to accommodate as many fieldwork educators and academic fieldwork coordinators as possible. Training for students should include survival skills for fieldwork, as well as an introduction to the fieldwork educator role so that they can maximize what they get out of supervision. At the center of the discussion was the development of a national credentialing or certification program for training fieldwork educators in the theory and practice of clinical supervision. This need for training fieldwork educators has been repeatedly articulated in our professional literature for decades, and is being echoed by our colleagues in other countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
Third is the development of a Fieldwork Clearinghouse—a resource bank for information on fieldwork education developed by regional consortia and educational programs. This repository of information needs to be easily accessible by students, fieldwork educators, academic fieldwork coordinators, and interested consumers.
The importance of lifelong learning at all levels of occupational therapy practice was discussed, along with the need to relate that learning to role development for fieldwork educators. Just as we have identified novice, intermediate, and advanced levels of practitioners, we need to develop role delineation in fieldwork education with specific competencies developed for each level. The Role Competencies for Fieldwork Educators document needs to reflect what constitutes the novice, intermediate, and advanced fieldwork educator.
The emphasis in our profession on evidence-based practice needs to extend into fieldwork education, with a collaborative research agenda being developed between educational programs and practitioners. We need more studies on what models of supervision constitute best practice in occupational therapy, and what methods of clinical teaching lead to the best outcomes. This research agenda is envisioned to promote the role development of practice scholars; these are practitioners who
- apply current evidence to practice according to their role expectations;
- demonstrate occupation-based approaches to practice;
- contribute to the scholarship of practice;
- are committed to the ongoing education of occupational therapy and occupational therapy assistant students;
- regularly engage in reflective practice as a mechanism for personal and professional growth; and,
- recognize and respond to the development of role-emerging practice settings.
The committee also explored ways of recognizing best practice in fieldwork; some of the ideas were to develop a national award for outstanding fieldwork educators, create model fieldwork programs, and further identify criteria for a national fieldwork site of excellence award.
The ad hoc group discussed investing in and mobilizing a Decade of Fieldwork program that would lead to our profession's centennial anniversary, developing processes and resources for fieldwork preparation and supervision competence. Four foundational values were identified to support this initiative:
- An evidence-based approach to the development of fieldwork resources and expectations
- The collaboration and integration between practice settings and academia
- A commitment to a lifelong learning journey of discovery
- A commitment to excellence through recognizing attainment and achievement
We need to be proactive and begin the process of elevating fieldwork education to a new dimension within our profession to ensure that the practitioners of tomorrow will be able to embrace future opportunities.
Donna M. Costa, MS, OTR/L, is the interim program director at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York, and the Academic Fieldwork Coordinator Representative on AOTA's Commission on Education.
Reference Information:
Costa, D. M. (2006). A vision of fieldwork excellence. [Electronic Version]. OT Practice, 11(8), 9–10.
©Copyright 2007. The American Occupational Therapy Association. All rights reserved.