Seeking Payment for Social Work Internships

During her last semester in the University of Texas at Austin’s master’s of social work program, Beth Wagner worked three jobs: 27 hours a week as a mental health counselor for employees of Goodwill of Central Texas and a total of 25 hours a week as a teaching assistant for two UT Austin courses. She was paid for the teaching assistantships but not for the counselor role. That’s because that job was her field placement, an internship required for most social work degrees in which students learn how to provide services through on-the-ground work with real clients. Field placements have long been unpaid, much like their analogues in the world of education (student teaching) and nursing (clinical rotations). But students like Wagner are hoping to change that.