BREAKING OUT OF THE BOX
Adventure-Based Field Instruction, 2nd Edition

Kelly Ward and Robin Sakina Mama, Monmouth University

Breaking Out of the Box: Adventure-Based Field Instruction offers new social workers experiential, adventure-based learning to help them develop skills that are often overlooked in traditional reading and journal writing based field courses. In this second edition, Kelly Ward and Robin S. Mama have revised and expanded their popular interactive exercises to engage students in all components of social work, from theory to assessment, allowing students to comfortably adjust to field practice and make the most of their experience.

Intended for social work students in concurrent field placement, Breaking Out of the Box, 2nd edition is a fun, informal text that considers a wide range of concerns experienced by beginning social workers. Here, Ward and Mama emphasize the importance and potential of methods of alternative learning and challenge students to defy their own expectations, while using multiple senses and building trust.

The authors designed these activities to emphasize individual decision making within a group setting, so students develop their individualized skills as well as group communication, group problem solving, leadership roles, and relationship building.  Often, students later use the activities with clients in their own practices and the adventure-based exercises facilitate the students’ empowerment in dealing both with their clients and with agencies. In this edition, the authors also address safety and agency politics, topics rarely discussed in other texts, and an entirely new section covers the complexities of language, non-verbal communication, and culturally-sensitive practice.

For the benefit of instructors, the authors have prepared an instructor’s manual for a detailed guide for each exercise, including preparation, presentation, variations, objectives, and questions for the review process.  The instructor’s manual also includes lesson plans in which the exercise is integrated with lecture and discussion, and the objectives of each section are listed. Professors Ward and Mama provide detailed descriptions and instructions for each step, as well as tips for connecting the experience of the activity to the social work content from the chapter of the text and students’ field internships.

Features

• Instructor’s manual that includes numerous adventure-based activities to engage students with different learning styles
• Emphasis on interconnections between five areas of social work (field, practice, research, social policy, human behavior)
• “Thoughts to Ponder” boxes appear throughout to encourage reflective and critical thinking
• Real case examples illustrating how social work practice affects clients
• Discusses ethical demands utilizing the Canadian Association of Social Workers (CASW) and the NASW Codes of Ethics
• Journal pages that enable students to write and reflect on issues and problems they are experiencing or may experience in the field
• Up-to-date Internet resources are included to supplement text
• Perforated, removable pages for ease of use
• Included journal pages for written reflection

Contents

Chapter 1:	Getting Started
Chapter 2:	Building Professional Relationships
Chapter 3:	Teamwork: Your Supervisor and You
Chapter 4:	Developing the Professional Persona
Chapter 5:	Expectations and Stereotypes
Chapter 6:	Communication: Building Bridges, Not Walls
Chapter 7:	Insight into Your Client’s Perceptions
Chapter 8:	Put It in Writing!
Chapter 9:	Pick a Theory, Any Theory
Chapter 10:	Treatment Planning
Chapter 11:	Finding Your Place in the Agency
Chapter 12:	Boundaries: The Invisible Lines of Trust
Chapter 13:	Difficult Issues and Difficult Clients
Chapter 14:	Self-Evaluation
Chapter 15:	Termination and Evaluation of Client Progress
Appendix A:	Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers
Appendix B:	Code of Ethics of the Canadian Association of Social Workers
Appendix C:	Monmouth University – An Empowering, Strengths-Based Psychosocial Assessment and Treatment Planning Outline for Practice with Families and Children
Appendix D:	Monmouth University Process Recording Outlines
References
Index

About the Authors

Kelly Ward (PhD, Fordham University; MSW, Rutgers University; BSW, Eastern Michigan University) is associate professor in social work and BSW program director at Monmouth University.  She was named Teacher of the Year at Monmouth University in 2008

Robin Sakina Mama (PhD, MLSP, MSS, Bryn Mawr College; BSW, College Misericordia) is professor and dean of social work at Monmouth University.  She received the Jane Addams Award in 2005 for her contributions to social work and was named Teacher of the Year in 2000 at Monmouth University.

About the Cover

In the spirit of the authors' experiential approach to field practice, noted artist Richard Hull has created a cover that portrays both the social worker's journey and the shattering of expectations. With geometric planes in ecstatic colors, Hull illustrates the ordered chaos of field work using variable textures and an "endless box" motif that appears frequently in his work.

2010, Paper, 240 Pages, ISBN 978-1-933478-83-8, Price $36.95