This year I had the privilege of serving as Agency Field Instructor for two BSW practicum students whose self-directed research practicum redefined what community-based learning can look like: Brittney Fletcher and Tamarau Bingila.
In a self-directed research practicum, students don’t slot into a single agency. They build their own path, mapping community resources, conducting informational interviews with practitioners, attending conferences, advocating on live policy issues, and showing up week after week in the spaces where social work actually happens. My role is to walk alongside them: weekly supervision, real-time consultation, encouragement to follow their curiosity, and a steady invitation to reflect on what they are learning.
These two made my role easy.
Tamarau visited more than 10 Kamloops agencies, including CLBC, Nexus, Lii Michif Otipemisiwak, Interior Health Authority, Ask Wellness, Hopewell, Same Sky, and ICS, and volunteered nearly every week at Chartwell Senior Living. She completed full-day Non-Violent Crisis Intervention training, engaged deeply with Black History Month advocacy and the 9Genders Project, and attended FUSE Research Networking, the Living Library, and the Undergraduate Research and Innovation Conference. Her community engagement was relational and consistent, never a checklist.
Brittney built bridges across Kamloops with the instincts of a seasoned community navigator. She visited and interviewed practitioners at ICS, the Kamloops Aboriginal Friendship Centre, Ask Wellness, SVRP, Child and Youth Special Needs, Blind Beginnings, and the Kamloops Hospice. She attended the full Gabor Maté Healing Days Conference, advocated for Bill S-243 at the Dercum’s Disease Summit, completed her Circle of Security certificate, sat in on TRU Senate twice, and researched the PWD appeals process and autism funding policy with a depth that goes well beyond what is expected at this stage.
Here is what made their work truly exceptional: they did all of this while practising intentional self-care. Tamarau wove yoga at the Wellness Centre, scheduled rest, library reading time, and personal reflection into her weekly hours alongside her agency work. Brittney navigated real health considerations and caregiving responsibilities throughout the term, naming her self-care needs honestly and protecting them as part of her professional practice. Neither of them treated self-care as something to do after the work; they treated it as part of the work. That is exactly the lesson the next generation of social workers needs to learn, and these two are already living it.
They were welcomed back to every single agency they visited. Every one. That is the truest measure of practicum success I know. In a self-directed practicum, where formal agency placements were not always available and the student must build their own welcome, Brittney and Tamarau showed that integrity, preparation, warmth, and genuine curiosity open every door. When the conventional path was not there, they made their own, and in doing so, they made their practice shine.
Their community connection and navigation is a model for every BSW student to aspire to. Not because they did extraordinary things (though they did), but because they did ordinary things, showing up, asking good questions, listening, following up, with extraordinary consistency and heart.
This was a third-level practicum, and Brittney and Tamarau brought Master’s-level self-directedness to it. The individual initiative, organization, and time management I witnessed week after week, planning their own schedules, reaching out to agencies cold, integrating training, conferences, advocacy, supervision, and self-care into coherent weekly plans, meeting every deadline, and reflecting honestly on every step, is exactly what we hope to see in graduate-level practice. It was a joy to witness and a joy to guide in every single moment.
None of this happens alone, and I want to name the team that makes it possible. As I continue taking on additional responsibilities alongside my main duties at TRU, the support around me is itself a joy.
Thank you to Dr. Raj Chahal, our outstanding Field Coordinator, who has a remarkable gift for knowing which students will flourish under my supervision style. Her thoughtful matching is the quiet beginning of every success story like this one.
Thank you to Dr. Juliana West and Dr. Jennifer Murphy, the Faculty Liaisons for Tamarau and Brittney respectively, who validated and celebrated these students’ gifts and talents both in the classroom and in the practicum space. Their belief in Brittney and Tamarau gave them the room to grow, take risks, and trust their own emerging professional voices.
It is a team that makes students shine, and we have the very best students to make shine.
Brittney and Tamarau, thank you for letting me witness your becoming. Thank you for such a wonderful term. Kamloops, and every community you will serve next, is fortunate to have you.
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