Practitioner competence in social work: Training and evaluation

Practitioner competence is becoming an increasingly important priority within the social work profession. A skill training program designed to promote practice competence was developed to examine problematic situations for social workers. Previous training programs have emphasized basic skills but have not attempted to teach skills in specific problematic situations. This pilot training program was evaluated using a time-series design replicated across four subjects. Results show that students made gains on all measures after the introduction of the training. These results suggest that social work students can enhance their practice skills and competence through training of this nature.