Teaching social work group practice competencies through an online mutual aid MSW peer support group assignment

Social work educators find it a challenge to create meaningful and realistic experiential learning opportunities for distance education students to practice and demonstrate competence in social group work practice and telehealth skills. The 'Peer Support Group for First Year MSW students' assignment was designed to meet this need. For the assignment, students form a small mutual aid peer support group that is delivered through web-conferencing, and each student is responsible for creating, implementing, facilitating, and evaluating one group session, which they record and submit for instructor review. They participate as group members for the remaining peer support group sessions. Student feedback and instructor reflections reveal that it provides a realistic group facilitation experience for students to practice their group telehealth skills, and that students benefit from the community of support and mutual aid they receive from participating in the groups. This assignment demonstrates that social work students in distance-education courses can engage in experiential practice experiences that develop their competence in social group work practice, so that they are prepared to meet workforce needs.