Social work course mixes classroom with community

By Konrad Solberg

The students in Lashawnda Singleton's 8 a.m. class in Hibbs Hall were anything but bleary-eyed and half-asleep. Awake and alert, they seemed eager to engage.

"It seems a lot more like therapy than class," said Maame Brew-Wilson, a freshman in Communication and Interpersonal Skills in Social Work. "It's the open communication we have."

Singleton is a community-embedded adjunct faculty member in Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Social Work, where she shares with students the real-world experience of a practicing professional. So while she promotes open discussion in her classroom, some of her lasting lessons come from beyond its walls: A portion of the class consists of service work with community organizations of each student's choice, which can appeal to students of any academic major.

Singleton finds different ways of providing students with context that can help them better understand their community and the people who live in it. The service-learning course aligns with VCU's emphasis on transformative learning experiences.

Singleton said effective social work demands a holistic approach to each person as an individual, which is rooted in communication.

"It requires us to see all of those different compartments of a person and put it together to come up with a plan," she said.

To expose her students to Richmond's diversity, Singleton works with organizations including the city court system and Help Me Help You, a local foundation that helps residents reintegrate into the community after incarceration - and where she serves as a case manager.

"We would not be who we are without her being a part of us," said Michelle Mosby, founder of Help Me Help You.

Through Singleton's work with the foundation, her students get to see her in action not as a professor but as a social worker, one with deep insights into the justice system. And the service-learning approach also gives students a glimpse of Singleton's communication theories put to work.

"This class puts you in the real world," student Alexis Washburn said. "Being able to do hands-on work for the community not only connects you with your community, but gives you a lot of experiences other universities don't."

Beyond community foundations, Singleton gives students the option to go into courthouses and observe recovery and mental health dockets. They learn about the justice system while getting a perspective that likely is new to them.

"I want them to sit in a space that is totally different from anything else they've seen," said Singleton, who earned her VCU undergraduate degree in social work in 2014. "Most of them have … watched a criminal proceeding on TV. But they're not used to seeing a judge call somebody by their first name, or hearing a judge say they want to give someone a hug."

The goal, Singleton said, is more empathy - and a better understanding of how communication affects perception, which then influences policy.

And policy is key, Singleton said, because it is at the foundation of any system - whether the justice system or, in an example she often uses with students, getting a driver's license. The age - 16 - for obtaining a license is set by policy, which was written by people who based it on their perceptions, such as when it might be safest for a young person to begin driving.

"Everything we do is based on a policy and how that policy is interpreted," Singleton said. "Because the first thing a lot of students say is, 'We gotta fix a broken system.' But the system is performing exactly the way in which it was designed."

Back in the classroom, Singleton emphasizes the contexts in which historical policies were written, and how change requires an understanding of every perspective involved in policymaking. To Singleton, perspective is what makes social work so effective - and in the case of the justice system, vital for those involved in it. The goal is to get all parties working as a team.

For her students, whether they enter social work or other fields, the Communication and Interpersonal Skills in Social Work course will have given them the experience of working with judges, lawyers, police, community leaders and justice-involved individuals.

"But then you're going to have police who never get that experience, or lawyers who never have that experience," Singleton said. "They're not going to see it from the same way, and that's why you have folks working in nonprofits that look at alternatives to incarceration."