MSW Practicum Supervision — Joint Meeting Minutes

This was the very first time all three people involved in Jose's practicum sat down together. Art Fuller is Jose's Task Supervisor — he works with Jose every day on case studies, writing, and building an app. Danica Nestor is Jose's Clinical Supervisor — she's a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) who meets with Jose for one hour each week to talk about the clinical side of social work. Jose Rosiles is the MSW practicum student from Alliant International University. The three main goals for this meeting were: (1) finish setting up the learning contract through a system called Time2Track, (2) look at Jose's case study reflections so far, and (3) agree on how supervision will work going forward.

Art explained how Jose's supervision is organized. There are two supervisors, and each one has a different job: • Art Fuller is the Task Supervisor. He handles the day-to-day work — the case studies Jose writes, the app Jose is building, and Jose's written reflections. • Danica Nestor is the Clinical Supervisor. She gives Jose one hour of clinical supervision per week, focused on the professional and emotional side of social work. • The three of them will meet together every Monday at the same time for as long as the practicum lasts. • They added an extra meeting on Friday this week (at 3:00 PM Pacific / 6:00 PM Eastern), because Danica wouldn't be available the following week. • Jose said he could make the Friday meeting.

A big part of this meeting was spent trying to fix problems with Time2Track — the system where Jose logs his practicum hours and gets them approved. Here's what happened: • Art said he has a Time2Track account and is logged in on his phone. • Danica said she logged in before after getting an invitation from Sarah (the program director), but the system said she had no students assigned to her. • Jose said he's been logging his hours and thought both Art and Danica were added to his account — but Art said he never got any notifications to approve hours. • They figured out that the university director (Lindsay) might need to be the one to connect the supervisors to Jose's account, not Jose himself. • Art took a screenshot of his Time2Track screen and emailed it to Jose and Danica so everyone had a record of the problem. The plan to fix it: Jose will talk to his Alliant professor during Wednesday office hours or email them to get help connecting the supervisors in Time2Track.

Jose told Danica about the case studies he's been doing. Art made these case studies specifically for Jose — they're based on Jose's background, his location in California, and the type of social work he wants to do. During the meeting, Art sent both Jose and Danica a PDF with all of Jose's written reflections so they could review them together.

Jose also told Danica about the app he's been building as part of his practicum. It's called Haven Clinician, and it's a tool that helps social workers keep track of their clients and their progress. Jose designed it for a prison setting, because that's where he wants to work after graduation. Danica thought it was a great project and said it counts as real practicum learning.

Art asked Jose to tell Danica about the AI feedback he gets when he submits his case study reflections. Here's how it works: when Jose turns in a reflection, AI reads it and gives him a score and feedback right away. Then Art (a real person) also grades it separately. So Jose gets two rounds of feedback — one from a computer and one from a human. Jose said the AI is stricter than Art's grading, but he likes it because it pushes him to do better. He noticed his scores have been going up over time.

The conversation shifted to an important topic: money and burnout in social work. Art pointed out that there's a lot of stigma around mental health in communities of color and bilingual communities — and that Jose's ability to speak both English and Spanish makes him especially valuable. Danica went deeper into a problem that many social workers face: people praise you for doing important work, but they don't always pay you fairly for it. She called this "toxic positivity" — when people celebrate what you do but don't back it up with real compensation. She said if you're burnt out and not getting paid enough, you can't actually help your clients. Art backed this up by sharing that his own organization has 25 open positions for social workers right now. There's a massive shortage of social workers across the country, and the work is highly specialized — so people in this field deserve to be compensated accordingly.

Art and Danica had a detailed conversation about documentation — the notes and records that social workers write about their clients. Danica explained that good documentation isn't about writing a lot. It's about writing clearly so that anyone who reads your notes knows exactly what happened and what to do next. She shared a key rule: "If you didn't document it, it didn't happen." In other words, if you did something for a client but you didn't write it down, it's as if it never happened — legally, professionally, and for the client's future care. Danica also explained that your notes aren't just for you. Doctors, insurance companies, the patient's family, home health workers, and other social workers will all read the same documentation. So you have to be thoughtful about what you write and how you phrase it. She shared a personal story: once, a doctor asked her to change a note because the way she wrote it made it look like the doctor hadn't done his job. She learned that documentation stays with a patient for a long time, so you have to be careful and intentional — not emotional. Finally, Danica said AI has actually made documentation easier. It handles a lot of the repetitive work, which gives social workers more time to spend face-to-face with clients.

Art asked Danica what she thinks about AI being used in social work. Danica had a balanced take — she likes AI and uses it, but she's clear about its limits. Her main point: AI is like a calculator. If you put in the right information, you get good results. If you put in the wrong information, you get wrong results. You always have to check your work. She also warned that AI can mix up clients. For example, it might think you're still talking about the client from last week when you've actually moved on to a different person. That's why reviewing everything AI produces is so important. Overall, Danica is a fan. She said AI isn't going anywhere, and she'd rather use it to make her job easier than fight against it. She noted that clinical documentation systems have come a long way since she started — and AI-assisted note writing is a big part of that improvement.

The meeting ended with a conversation about how community events and creative arts can help people heal — something Jose had explored in one of his case studies about music and community health. Jose shared a memory from high school: his school held an event called "Breaking Down the Walls" where students opened up and were vulnerable with each other. He said it was powerful to see classmates he thought were fine actually going through tough things — and it made him realize how important those shared experiences are. Danica shared her own experience: she helped organize a "stroke walk" at a rehab center. Stroke patients who could barely get out of bed months earlier got to walk together and see how far they'd come. Families met other families going through the same thing, shared resources, and supported each other. It created a real sense of community.