Karen Sewell

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor (Associate) at Carleton University

Although advocacy is a key process in social work practice, there is a dearth of research on the constraints experienced in engaging in this process. Drawing on a larger project on frontline social workers’ advocacy practices, this paper focuses on barriers hospital mental health social workers face as they advocate against systemic inequity and su...

Workplace-based supervision within human services is an organizational resource with potential to support practitioners, delivery of services, client outcomes, and organizations. However, little is known about the practice of supervision in organizational settings. This paper reports on a cross-sectional, descriptive study that explored supervision...

Violence against women (VAW) is a prevailing social issue which requires human service organizations to provide a range of services to survivors. Workplace-based supervision in settings that seek to address VAW is an essential component of quality service. This scoping review of seven studies maps the available evidence of supervision in settings t...

Purpose: This paper compares two iterations (in-person and online) of a multi-stage continuing education program for improving high-risk decision-making among mental health workers. Methods: The mixed-methods study analyzed the following: (1) physiological and psychological arousal during simulated patient interviews; (2) physiological and psycholo...

This explorative study provides insight into the experiences of standardized clients (SC) involved in simulation for social work education and research. The purpose was to contribute to scholarly conversations regarding SCs and to provide an empirical foundation to inform our simulation program by attending to the perspectives of SC participants wh...

Clinical supervision (CS) is considered a crucial component in the development of health professionals and the delivery of effective services across disciplines and nationalities. However, collaboration efforts across disciplines and geographies remain limited. In the present autoethnographic study of developing the Clinical Supervision Connection...

Effective supervision is a key aspect of community-based mental health practice that may enrich staff development, and improve the quality of care for clients. This case study describes the organizational efforts of a not-for-profit, community-based mental health and addiction service provider to strengthen its approaches to clinical supervision. T...

This article reports the use of online live-streamed simulations (online LSS), implemented on Zoom with Master of Social Work students. A thematic analysis was conducted from an online survey (n = 26 responses) to explore, 1) if online LSS can offer the same potential to develop holistic competence as in-class simulations, and 2) how students exper...

Supervision of staff in the helping professions is valued and considered important for effective service delivery, with expert consensus that the delivery of high-quality supervision strengthens the social service workforce. The demands of publicly funded settings provide compelling rationale for supervision to protect marginalized clients, while e...

The integration of informal information and communication technologies (ICTs) has transformed social work practice, yet the use of ICTs in practice is not commonly discussed in supervision. The aim of this sequential mixed methods study was to understand the factors associated with social workers’ discussion of informal ICT use in supervision, and...

The most common form of social work (SW) practice in Canada is clinical which requires specialized knowledge and advanced clinical skills. The SW profession is more than 100 years old, but regulation is new to Canada and presently most jurisdictions have regulatory bodies to advance safe, competent, and ethical practices. Regulatory bodies establis...

This tribute article highlights Professor Marion Bogo’s groundbreaking work on simulation-based social work education. We highlight Professor Bogo’s lifetime commitment to enhancing social work education through research, mentorship, and innovation. Professor Bogo advanced the use of simulation with trained actors by implementing a structured and e...

Social workers play an important role in the field of mental health and addictions, but there are concerns about the level of training and education offered by social work programs. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perspectives of Canadian social work faculty members on social work education in mental health and addictions....

There have been longstanding debates about Master of Social Work (MSW) Advanced Standing programs. Many schools of social work offer Advanced Standing status to students with a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) that allows students to enter directly into a concentrated and specialized second year of the MSW program. There are arguments that BSW program...

Social workers and other professionals providing mental health services are regularly required to make high-stakes decisions in situations characterised by conflicting demands. To better understand the factors that drive clinical decision making in situations of risk and uncertainty, we used a design-based research framework to pilot a new approach...

This article reports a scoping review designed to synthesize current literature that used simulation as an investigative methodology (simulation-based research; SBR) in researching practice competencies in clinical social work. Following Arksey and O’Malley’s scoping review framework, 24 articles were included in this scoping review. The majority o...

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted an abrupt shift in the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in practice. The pre-pandemic use of informal ICT was already ubiquitous in social work practice. The purpose of this teaching note is to highlight that social work education must prepare students for practice using ICT during COVID-19 and be...

Contributing to the understanding of supervision within evidence-based interventions (EBIs), this paper presents a feasibility study implementing a workplace-based clinical supervision model within Canadian community-based agencies delivering the SNAP (Stop Now and Plan) EBIs for children with disruptive behaviors. Partial demand for implementing t...

Social work programs need to prepare students for practice in assessing mental health, addictions, and suicide risk assessment. In response to a call for increased training, we partnered with community social workers and re-designed a course on social work practice in mental health using a flipped classroom approach. We conducted a qualitative stud...

Researchers have documented diminishing staff supervision in health care settings, while noting the complexity and dynamic nature of health care systems. A secondary data analysis of a survey of the Ontario Association of Social Workers (N=666) explored the contemporary receipt of different types of supervision in frontline health care. Most social...

Recognizing that despite what has been termed a ‘crisis’ in field education or practice learning, there exists a robust contemporary empirical literature illuminating a range of issues related to offering quality educational experiences to students in agency and community settings. The aim of this scoping review was to offer an overview and underst...

Teaching students about culture and diversity in social work practice is a complex and important task for social work educators. In this study, we assessed students’ conceptualization of culture and diversity factors follow-ing a simulated interview. Participants (N = 57 MSW students) completed areflection questionnaire post-simulation and we conduc...

Social workers play a critical role in assessing and treating individuals and families with mental health and addiction concerns. Although social workers are key professionals in the mental health workforce, there are gaps in the training and education of mental health, addictions, and suicide, and many students are inadequately prepared for field...

Social workers have an important role in the field of mental health and social work programs have a responsibility to prepare students for practice. This scoping review mapped and synthesized the literature on mental health, addictions, and suicide in social work education and training. We included 51 articles that examined social work education an...

For children and their families who have experienced success in middle years mental health interventions, adolescence represents a developmental period when additional challenges can emerge and potentially threaten positive gains. For youth who have a history of disruptive behaviors, addressing risks and balancing interventions with a focus on skil...

Social workers engage with and hold the emotional context of clients, while managing their own cognitive and affective reactions. As such, the importance of attending to social work students’ emotional reactions in the classroom to effectively prepare them for field education and practice has been recognized. A greater understanding of cognitive an...

Purpose: This article presents a scoping review that synthesized empirical studies on simulation in social work (SW) education. The review maps the research examining characteristics of simulation studies in SW education and emerging best practices. Methods: Using Arksey and O’Malley’s scoping review framework to develop the methodology and followi...

Purpose: In this paper, we present an exploratory, qualitative strand of a multiphase program evaluation of the Canadian-based SNAP® Youth Justice (SNAP YJ) model for males involved with the youth criminal justice system. SNAP YJ’s therapeutic approach is founded on the evidence-based SNAP (Stop Now And Plan) model which focuses on strategies to en...

Social work students are tasked with learning the meta and procedural competencies required of the profession while facing their own emotional responses to vulnerable populations and managing clients’ difficult experiences. Social work educators can support students in exploring, understanding, and learning to tolerate, regulate, and manage their e...

Objective University has been identified as an important time to develop exercise habits. The aim of this study was to examine factors that enhanced exercise participation among a diverse set of undergraduate students and their perceived facilitators as well as barriers to exercising regularly. Setting A large public university in one of the large...

Introduction Social workers are among the largest group of professionals in the mental health workforce and play a key role in the assessment of mental health, addictions and suicide. Most social workers provide services to individuals with mental health concerns, yet there are gaps in research on social work education and training programmes. The...

Feedback is an important mechanism that enhances student learning in supervision and field education. Constructive feedback that is specific, timely, and based on observations, bridges theory and practice, enhances self-awareness, and builds holistic competence in social work students. There is scant social work research examining how this teaching...

Two Special Issues of the Clinical Social Work Journal have been dedicated to building on the social work discipline’s tradition and commitment to the supervision of staff and field education of students. The first issue included papers on the supervision of professional social work staff. The focus of this issue is field education of students, the...

In an interview with Dr. Lawrence Shulman, he presents his insights on clinical supervision from a social work and interdisciplinary perspective. Dr. Shulman is a luminary in social work and interdisciplinary supervision, developing the Interactional Model of Supervision. In reflecting on his career in social work research, education, and practice,...

Supervision of staff has a rich history within the social work profession, and is widely valued internationally for the support, knowledge, and skill it is perceived to provide. Moreover, quality supervision is championed for ensuring good client care. However, supervisors practicing within the social work profession have not typically had access t...

This poster was presented at the OASW Provincial Conference 2018. It presents the preliminary results of a scoping review that examined social work education and training in mental health, addictions, and suicide.

Two Special Issues of the Clinical Social Work Journal have been dedicated to building on the social work discipline’s tradition and commitment to the supervision of staff and field education of students. These issues bring together contemporary theorizing, clinical supervisory and field education practice experience and wisdom, and research studie...

There has been a call for social work programs to better prepare students for field education. This qualitative study examined an innovation titled “Practice Fridays” developed to enhance competence in MSW students in a classroom setting. Students (N = 57) described what they learned through this simulation-based learning activity and the processes...

A theoretically grounded, evidence-informed, integrated model of clinical supervision for staff in agency settings is presented for a Canadian evidence-based program for children with severe disruptive behavioral difficulties. The aim is to provide the best service for clients through enhancing and supporting implementation, while meeting the educa...

Objectives: Reported neglect investigations were compared across a 20-year time frame using data from the five cycles of the Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (OIS-1993 to 2013) in order to discuss the impact of significant policy changes on the Ontario child welfare system’s response to child neglect. Methods: Each OIS cy...