Continuing Education as an Effective Linkage Between Schools of Social Work And the Practice Community
Abstract Establishing viable linkages between social work education and practice has been a constant concern of educators and practitioners. Traditional linkages such as agency field placements and agency-based research have not materially strengthened relationships. Continuing education can be an effective linkage between schools and practitioners, providing two conditions are met. First, continuing education programs must be centrally administered as part of the mainstream of the school's curriculum. Second, both practitioners and administrators must be engaged actively in curriculum planning, implementation, and evaluation. The Extramural MSW Program and the Child Welfare Training Project at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, are used as illustrations.
Development of a Profession: Field-Instruction Correlates
This article discusses field instruction in social work with reference to the development and maturation of professions. The premise is that professions go through phases as they develop starting with heavy reliance on the field for practice skill acquisition, proceeding to an equal sharing between the field and the university, and culminating in the assumption of major responsibility by the university. It is suggested that social work is in the middle phase. Professional maturation will require increased responsibility by schools of social work for the transmission of the skills of practice to students. Various approaches and formats to achieve this are discussed and diverse training methods, including service and training centers and skills laboratories, are described.
Fungal Biotransformations in Pharmaceutical Sciences
The regio- and stereoselective conversion of complex substrates represents one of the major advantage of microbial biotransformation. This chapter covers the biocatalytic capacities of fungi to derivatize bioactive small molecules, both from natural sources and from synthetic compounds. We focus particularly on sterol and taxane biotransformation. We also present examples at the interface of biotransformation and pathway engineering using recombinant organisms, with an emphasis on the production of lovastatin derivatives. Finally, we highlight selected studies on fungal xenometabolism which serves as a model to study the breakdown of drugs in mammals.