Establishing Social Work Practicum Placements in Sport Settings

Social work in sport is a growing subspeciality of social work practice, and there is a need for social work programs to graduate social work students competent to work with athlete populations. Practicum opportunities in sport settings are an important part of such educational efforts. However, there are challenges to establishing these placements because sport is a nontraditional social work setting. This narrative inquiry explored the constraints of social work practicum staff in establishing practicum placement opportunities in sport organizations. Overall, participants had to make certain planning decisions based on the culture of the organization, which was different for elite versus youth and community-based sport organizations. These different types of organizational contexts also led to different challenges, although the strategy of remaining open and transparent about the expectations was used to overcome both the challenge of the elite sport system and the need to assure meaningful educational tasks for students in youth and community-based sport settings. Finally, participants needed to negotiate their positionalities to prove their understanding of sport culture to gain trust and credibility with the gatekeepers throughout the planning process. Participants experienced interpersonal, intrapersonal, and structural constraints, and had to implement various strategies to overcome those challenges.