News
BUSSW – Professor Bronwyn Keefe & BU Colleagues to Pilot Online Home Assessment Simulation Training
While home visits are an important aspect of social service careers, graduate students rarely have the opportunity to receive hands-on training for home assessments during class time. To address this need, Prof. Bronwyn Keefe, director of the Center for Aging and Disability Education and Research at Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW), alongside other BU faculty, are developing the Home Safety Training Project, funded by a grant from the BU Shipley Center.
The Home Safety Training Project features six online modules that guide students through simulated scenarios of home assessments for people with disabilities and older adults. Graduate students gain valuable, hands-on experience performing home visits in a low-stakes environment, better preparing them for fieldwork and their careers. The training will also be offered as a future continuing education program for social workers on The Network for Professional Education.
Excerpt from “Profs. Muroff, Keefe, & BU Colleagues Receive Grant to Develop Simulation Training for Conducting Home Assessments”, originally published by Boston University School of Social Work:
“While BUSSW and Sargent College students develop these skills during field placements, ‘leaving home assessment training to field agencies can lead to a variety of training depth, standardization, and quality,’ says Keefe. The Home Safety Training Project seeks to bridge these gaps. ‘By creating an interactive, innovative, and standardized training program, students will graduate with hands-on experience in home assessment that can be immediately applied to their future careers. The training will also lessen the burden of training new graduates on the job and allow for deeper learning opportunities in their places of work.’”