The School Practice of Individualized Intervention in Social Work: Autoethnography From the Teaching Experience

School-based practicum in social work seeks to contextualize student learning. For casework or individualized intervention, this practicum is particularly significant, as it constitutes a method with a long professional and academic tradition and a cornerstone of professional training. The guidance and supervision provided by the practicum instructor make the experience meaningful for students, service users, and their families, all of whom actively participate in the teaching–learning process. Through an autoethnographic approach, the study draws on the experience of the instructor in charge of the course Social Work Practice in Individual Education, offered in the sixth semester of the undergraduate program. The instructor identifies as the main concern the obstacles students face during the intervention process and in preparing the practicum report, which integrates the stages of the social work methodological process: research, diagnosis, planning, intervention, and evaluation. The chapter also describes the relevance of institutional linkage as a space for intervention, reviews the strategies used by instructor and students to address those obstacles, and presents the results of the follow-up conducted across the different stages of the practicum.