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College students training to be social workers can serve as crisis text respondents both to provide care to their community and to earn practicum hours for their degrees.
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Mental health concerns have grown over the past decade, hitting record highs during the COVID-19 pandemic and often exceeding the capacity of local mental health care professionals. In Texas, 246 of 254 counties are designated as Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas, defined as more than 30,000 residents per clinician.
San Antonio, home to Our Lady of the Lake University, is located in Bexar County and has a HPSA score of 18 out of 25 (with 25 indicating the highest need for providers).
To accommodate this shortage of mental health workers, OLLU partnered with nonprofit group Crisis Text Line to provide free, confidential 24-7 mental health support in English and Spanish. Students can engage in fieldwork requirements by volunteering as a crisis counselor, gaining real-world skills and helping support their community.
The background: All master’s of social work students at OLLU must complete 950 hours of field education, and bachelor’s students enroll in two field education courses, which require 900 hours of fieldwork.
In 2020, during stay-at-home orders due to COVID-19, leaders at OLLU had to find virtual practicum opportunities for more than 600 students who originally planned to work in hospital and hospice settings, explains Jacob Sanchez, director of field education at OLLU’s Worden School of Social Services.
Sanchez had also been investigating ways to incorporate technology into fieldwork to help students adapt to today’s needs.
“In the world of telehealth counseling, the option of service delivery through text gives everyone more access to mental health support. Even seasoned clinical service providers are on a learning curve when choosing to deliver therapeutic support through this modality,” Sanchez says. “Offering students the opportunity to interact with clients via text messaging will be essential for social work practice in the near future and beyond to continue developing key learnings.”
Crisis Text Line offers a Student Learning Practicum program, partnering with 24 higher education institutions to support social work students or those studying related fields to complete their practicum requirements.
Other Models of Support
Colleges around the nation are looking to contribute to mental health worker shortages by equipping their students to engage with their peers and outside community members.
- Master’s in counseling and doctoral students at Marymount University in Virginia can earn work experience through a free counseling clinic that serves students and the general public.
- Counseling staff at Carroll University in Wisconsin operates a 15-week free mental health clinic that supports the Waukesha community each summer.
This program was an ideal partnership both to help fulfill remote experiential learning opportunities but also to bridge gaps in service while ensuring diversity and equity across the industry, Sanchez says.
How it works: Students working toward their bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work are eligible to participate in the Crisis Text Line practicum. Each student is supervised by a qualified clinician during their time as a volunteer and receives around 30 hours of asynchronous training before starting.
On the job, students respond to texts from people in crisis, guiding them through challenging situations through active listening, problem-solving and safety planning, according to Crisis Text Line.
“As helpers, if we are smart enough, welcoming enough, and, more importantly, caring enough, we might understand how to assist people to recognize solutions that are relevant and genuinely help people,” Sanchez says. “This is what makes the difference in being effective in social work practice. The ability to teach this to students before entering the workforce is critical.”
OLLU’s courses take place on a quarter system, so students are lined up for field placement each term for about seven to nine weeks. The student’s seminar professor serves as a faculty liaison with the agency field instructor, guiding students through the 21 or 14 weeks of practicum for master’s and bachelor’s students, respectively.
The impact: Initially, OLLU leaders were hesitant to offer the practicum for text communication because it was unconventional and mostly absent from the literature, apart from call centers that engage in crisis or emergency aid. However, Crisis Text Line’s program demonstrated a mission to serve both students who volunteer and community members who call in for help.
“We have been able to maintain a strong partnership for student success by integrating an approach that promotes a shared mission supporting student education, clear successful onboarding and education performance expectations,” Sanchez says.
Since 2020, over 200 students in the master’s of social work program have participated in the Crisis Text Line partnership.
OLLU offers four social work programs, enrolling students both online and in an in-person modality for master’s and bachelor’s degrees. A majority of online students are nontraditional learners, making the opportunity to complete field practicum requirements in a remote setting innovative and transformative, Sanchez says.
The experience has also encouraged faculty and staff to investigate other online practicum opportunities to support student development.
“This diversity of options is important to the mission of expanding access to social work education across the country and around the globe,” Sanchez adds.
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