Social Work Practicum Students’ Experiences Navigating Trump’s 2025 Executive Orders: Opportunities and Challenges for Policy Practice.

Background/Purpose: Practicum education offers social work students the opportunity to engage in all nine Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS). Evidence suggests that social work students report low levels of proficiency related to Competency 5 – engage in policy practice, revealing potential gaps in learning. Policy practice may include responding to emergent national policy developments, such as executive orders (EOs).

From January through April of 2025, President Trump issued numerous immigration-related, gender-related, and DEI-related EOs. These EOs impacted social service providers, many of whom serve as practicum sites for social work students. Understanding how students experienced EO messaging through their practicum sites may illuminate future novel ways of engaging in policy practice within practicum education.

Our study examined BSW and MSW student perceptions of practicum site experiences following the 2025 immigration-related, DEI-related, and gender-related EOs. The following research questions were addressed: 1) Are social work students aware of the immigration-related, DEI-related and gender-related EOs? 2) Were the various EO types acknowledged by students’ practicum sites and supervisors? 3) What were the directives/messages students received from their practicum sites about the EOs? 4) How did students perceive the messages in terms of alignment with social work ethics/values and appropriateness?

Methods: This exploratory study utilized a cross-sectional survey design. Students (n=180) who were currently placed in a practicum site in one Western state and fully completed the survey were included in the analysis. We conducted descriptive analyses of close-ended survey responses and a thematic analysis of the open-ended survey responses involving a six-phase inductive coding approach.

Results: Key findings highlight the messages students received from practicum sites about the EOs. Almost all the participants indicated they were aware of the immigration-related (n=172, 96%), DEI-related (n=163, 92%), and gender-related (n=152, 86%) EOs; 90% of participants who were aware of each EO type disagreed with them. Approximately one-third of the participants indicated that no EOs had been acknowledged at their practicum sites. Although about half of respondents reported that their sites addressed the immigration-related EOs and the DEI-related EOs, just under a quarter of the respondents indicated their practicum sites addressed the gender-related EOs.

Half of respondents (n=89, 53%) affirmed that they felt their practicum sites’ responses to the EOs (either probably or definitely) aligned with social work values and ethics; a fifth of respondents (n=33, 20%) reported their sites' responses (probably or definitely) did not align with social work values and ethics. Themes across messages received from the practicum sites about the EOs included: client-focused messages, messages describing organizational impacts, messages aligning with the executive orders, and unclear or insufficient messaging.

Conclusion and Implications:

There was an overall paucity of messaging related to the EOs across practicum sites. This dearth of messaging underscores missed opportunities for learning, as well as the extent to which policies and legislation that directly affect marginalized groups are often not centered in practicum learning. Implications for practicum learning experiences, including organizational practices, practicum site training, and student-focused educational interventions are discussed.