Michigan State University’s Chance at Childhood Program

A key component of all graduate level social work programs is the field-based educational experience designed to provide students the opportunity to practice while under the supervision of both a field-based mentor and a faculty member within the school. Social work programs must develop and maintain ties with organizations and agencies within the community to facilitate a wide variety of options for students. Separately, social work schools are increasingly developing relationships with other professional schools, most often with law schools, to allow students to study from an interprofessional perspective. In this article, the authors review existing literature regarding social work interprofessional education, focusing on law and social work. The authors will describe Michigan State University’s School of Social Work Chance at Childhood Program, designed to train future social workers and lawyers from an interprofessional perspective in the classroom, in the field, and in a variety of community-based advocacy projects. Finally, the authors will discuss the results of preliminary research efforts designed to measure the program's effectiveness at achieving the program goals set forth in the program’s logic model.