Fall 2026 Issue

Protecting Social Work Students’ Well-Being: Field Education Stressors and Solutions
By Heather Rose Artushin, MSW, LISW-CP
Social Work Today
Vol. 26 No. 4 P. 10

Field education is a unique component of social work education that is absent from many other educational pathways. This supervised real-world experience is also one of the most valuable and crucial components of social work training, where students learn to apply theoretical concepts, develop their professional identity, and engage their burgeoning skills.

Elisa Kawam, PhD, associate teaching professor and MSW program director at Arizona State University’s School of Social Work, agrees—“Internship is where the rubber meets the road, where you find out what you know and what you don’t know, and field instructors are the way that all of that happens.”

While field experiences are integral to the social work training model, they can also place an additional burden on students who are already stretched thin. From financial strain to role conflict and mental health challenges, today’s social work students need support in order to protect their well-being against these stressors.

Financial Stress
Growing empirical evidence supports the idea that social work students are experiencing increased financial hardship as they attempt to juggle coursework, employment, and field practicum requirements, along with family commitments. In fact, what was once considered a “nontraditional student” is now the norm, as most graduate students in social work are balancing full-time employment, parenting, and caring for aging parents. “They’re coming in with a lot of life before they even enter the classroom,” Kawam emphasizes, “so when I’m working with my students in any capacity I assume that they’re carrying something that I don’t know about, and I remember that their humanity comes way before anything else.” Financial strain is a key factor in understanding the negative impacts some social work students are facing on their health and well-being.

From a social work student’s perspective, role conflict and financial stress are common side effects of field placement requirements, as they balance employment responsibilities, family caregiving roles, and coursework, along with unpaid practicum hours. One study showed that students enrolled part-time, those in unpaid field placements, gender-nonconforming students, and students of color reported significantly more challenges than their counterparts.1

While the field of social work is expected to be at the forefront of social change, unpaid field practicum requirements place an undue financial burden on students, exacerbating a socioeconomic divide and potentially setting the precedent for underpaid labor in the social work workforce.2

The unpaid nature of field practicum requirements creates an inequitable system in which only those who can afford to work without compensation can have access to a social work degree and career. The high cost of social work education relative to the humble starting pay of social workers makes a degree in social work financially inaccessible to many who have a desire to work in the field. This only serves to further exacerbate the present shortage of licensed social work professionals who provide life-saving mental health care in response to the increase in mental health challenges reported in individuals across the country.

To address the financial strain that many social work students today experience, employment-based field placements are emerging as one possible solution. Framed as a more equitable field experience, employment-based field placements allow students to complete their required practicum hours at their current job in a social work-related role.3

While this is one solution to financial stress in field education, the availability of employment-based field placements is limited and may not be an option for everyone. NASW is actively advocating for paid field placements in order to create a more equitable educational pathway to a social work degree. Stipends for students completing fieldwork could remove financial barriers to social work education and ease economic hardship for students who are providing for dependents while earning their degree.

Institutional and Community-Based Stressors
While fieldwork acts as a bridge between theoretical social work foundations and real-world practice, there are institutional and community-based challenges that students may face in order to complete this requirement.

Inadequate, inequitable, or competitive placement opportunities can make the process of securing a suitable field placement a stressful one. Insufficient supervision, weak coordination between universities and field agencies, and cultural or community-based challenges can add to the burden that social work students face, leaving them feeling powerless within the field education system.

The field practicum component of social work education is unique in its reliance upon community agencies and organizations to participate in the education of social work students. For this reason, field placements reflect changes taking place in the local community and in the social work profession as a whole. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many social work services shifted to a virtual platform, increasing demands placed on practicing social workers. Policy shifts impacting the social work profession have also left many agencies short-staffed, with many social workers expected to carry higher caseloads, leaving less time to supervise students.3

To ensure students embark upon their careers with confidence and professional readiness, social work programs can work on expanding placement opportunities, particularly in rural and community-based settings, and strengthening communication with field agencies. Improving the accessibility, equity, and quality of field education will benefit students and the social work field as a whole, as professionals emerge with their degrees feeling prepared and supported.4

Student Mental Health Challenges
A 2024 systematic literature review suggests that social work students experience mental health challenges due to stress, burnout, and educational demands. The author attributed these challenges to factors like financial stress and the burdens associated with working alongside vulnerable client populations.5

Social work students often engage with client populations who are suffering, whether they are serving in an outpatient mental health clinic with people who are depressed or anxious, in a medical setting with patients who are facing life-changing diagnoses, or in a school setting with children who are struggling with issues like poverty and social-emotional challenges. These issues can feel emotionally heavy and bring up countertransference issues that students need adequate time and support to process. As students are engaging in fieldwork, many are also interfacing with individual and social problems firsthand that they may have never dealt with before in a professional capacity, making the field experience more than just an internship, but a deeply profound personal journey.

The weight of fieldwork, in conjunction with role conflict issues and financial strain, can lead to mental health struggles for some students during their social work training. For example, a survey of social work students and recent graduates in Aotearoa New Zealand revealed that 58% sought mental health care during their time as a social work student. 60% of those who reported experiencing significant anxiety, stress, or depression did not seek mental health care, most often due to cost and access barriers. One in four respondents cited stigma and fear of career consequences as reasons for not seeking help, which raises the question of whether social workers feel pressure to “have it all together” themselves as they step into the role of caring for clients in the community.6

Normalizing the stress students are experiencing and providing ample opportunities for support is important in protecting student well-being as they serve the community in their field placement. “I think one of the main things students need to establish is a reflective practice, where they are making time to listen to themselves, and honoring that window of tolerance,” Kawam says. Understanding what is healthy stress and challenge vs a trauma response or overwhelm that requires additional support is important for today’s social work students to tune in to.

Social work programs can continue to actively teach students the importance of self-care, and how to practice it in daily life. While self-care has always been important to social work training and practice, it has evolved with students’ increased awareness of when they’re feeling stressed and a deeper understanding of ways to implement self-care effectively, according to Kawam’s observations.

“As a student, I remember feeling like I didn’t know what to do. I was totally unaware and confused,” Kawam reflects. Normalizing these feelings is one way social work field instructors and supervisors can reduce stress and protect student mental health. “We really need to normalize not knowing and asking for help. To say, ‘I’m an expert in XYZ,’ runs counter to social work. Rather, we can understand the practice and how to find and apply information. Asking questions is not a sign that you don’t know, but that you are being ethical and grounded in our work. I think it is important to normalize curiosity, which keeps some of the academic stress at bay.”

Future Directions
Technology has changed the field practicum experience for today’s social work students. “The practice is the practice,” Kawam emphasizes, “but things are moving at a warped speed all the time now with the technologies we are using, which is challenging for agencies and students.”

While supervision has become more accessible via technological advances over the years, allowing for communication via email, text message, and video conferencing, documentation processes and expectations, concerns related to social media, the 24/7 news cycle, and navigating the role of AI in social work practice are all additional stressors that today’s students are faced with. “Some of our students are influencers,” Kawam shares, “which prompts us to reevaluate: what does it mean to be a professional in 2026?”

Field education plays a crucial role for social work students in forming their professional identity. For Kawam, antioppressive and antiracist practice urges educators to evaluate field placement expectations to ensure agencies and supervisors are not asking students “to operate in ways that are oppressive for them, or culturally inaccurate or wrong for them.” While students are learning about social work practice, ethics, and community needs, agencies and social work programs are learning about each new generation of social workers and how up-and-coming professionals can enlighten the social work profession by bringing their own identities, values, and beliefs to the work.

“I get to be in the business of supporting my future colleagues,” Kawam says, “so I feel really strongly that the way we treat them and warm them into the profession is the way that they’ll treat other people.” Field instructors and supervisors play a key role in protecting student well-being during the intensive experience of field education. The work of investing in the next generation of social work professionals is a meaningful legacy that is actively shaping the field of social work. Kawam encourages supervisors and field instructors to provide students with “a real sense of mentorship and role modeling, and creating a supporting space to wonder, question, and practice receiving feedback.”

While all site supervisors and field instructors must stay current in social work ethics and best practice while protecting their own mental health and well-being in order to serve today’s students, it is also important for field education programs to focus on goodness of fit between students and field placements. The process of securing a field placement is often a dance between a student’s goals and the availability of fieldwork sites, and universities must work to ensure students’ needs are met in adequately preparing them for social work practice.

Agencies can also inform universities on how the field of social work is evolving in real-time, to shape social work education in order to best prepare the next generation of professionals. “I see the need in the future for a closer working relationship between universities and agencies, where agencies inform social work programs on what we need to train our students on based on what they are seeing in the field,” Kawam says. “To better prepare our future professionals, we need to be doing it the way our communities need it.”

Student Well-Being
While social work field education can be a stressful experience, from the financial challenges and role conflicts it often brings to the mental and emotional burdens students bear in their first exposures to the heartaches and joys of social work practice, with intentional support provided by field instructors and site supervisors, social work students can gain the most of their field experience while protecting their mental health and well-being. Emphasizing reflective practice and self-care routines can help equip students with tools that will prove valuable in their future career in the field.

“There is a generation of young minds and hearts who really want to do this work, and we are here to help them get ready,” Kawam concludes. “We value the role that professors and practicum supervisors serve in helping students to figure out who they are and what they want to do. This generation wants more of a holistic approach—they are saying, ‘Help me learn to be a social worker as a whole person.’”

— Heather Rose Artushin, MSW, LISW-CP, is a writer with over a decade of published experience and a passion for social justice.

References
1. Gyourko JR, Silver J, Johanna. Financial and psychosocial challenges reported by social work students: findings from a cross-sectional online survey. OSF website. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/uath2. Updated December 11, 2023.

2. Leslie AF. Paid placements in social work: addressing inequity and student well-being. Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services. 2025;107(2):705-714.

3. Lynch M, Stalker K, McClain-Meeder K. Emerging best practices for employment-based field placements: a path to a more equitable field experience: applied learning in social work education. Applied Learning in Social Work Education. 2023;13.2.

4. Woli L. Barriers in fieldwork practice for social work students: challenges and pathways for reform. International Research Journal of MMC. 2025;6:166-175.

5. Edwards V. Navigating mental health challenges among social work students. The California State University website. https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/concern/theses/7d2792359. Published August 21, 2024.

6. Beddoe L, Baker M, Cox K, Ballantyne N. Mental health struggles of social work students: distress, stigma, and perseverance. Qualitative Social Work. 2024;23(5):813-832.