Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions of a Dual-Language English-Spanish Social Work Practice Seminar Series: A Focus Group Study

Despite an urgent need for Spanish-speaking social workers to work with Latino immigrants in the United States, extremely few bachelor’s-level social work (BSW) programs offer courses that train bilingual students to work with this population. This focus group study investigates 11 English-Spanish bilingual BSW students’ perceptions of a recently- created two-semester seminar series designed for this endeavor at a New York City college. The findings indicate that the seminars enhanced students’ perceived ability to confidently provide linguistically-competent Spanish-speaking services. Participants also emphasized that the seminars provided a sense of community for them regarding their identity as Latino social work students.