Social Work Grand Rounds

Event series showcasing social workers and other behavioral health experts, marketed to healthcare professionals and providing Continuing Education Units (CEUs) and Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits for staff education

 The challenge

As a Social Work Manager, I conducted a staff satisfaction survey with my team, which revealed frustration with current continuing education opportunities, specifically surrounding limited course offerings and prohibitive costs. Social workers are required to complete a certain number of CEUs every two years in order to maintain clinical licensure, so access to CEUs was essential to both their job satisfaction and continued clinical practice.

With this in mind, I created a monthly event series titled “Social Work Grand Rounds”, which provided social workers and other healthcare professionals with a free opportunity to receive training from expert voices on a wide variety of topics and to obtain accompanying CEUs.

Timeline: January 2020–September 2021

My role: Event series creator and academic sponsor for continuing education. This included user research to identify pain points and areas of interest in continuing education, research on guidelines and requirements for distributing CEUs and CME, development of written marketing materials (flyers and invitations), technology coordination (slideshow and presentation hosting, Echo and Webex coordination for live streaming and event recording), speaker coordination and recruitment, event hosting and public speaking, and creation and oversight of the Social Work Grand Rounds Planning Committee.

Programs utilized: Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Teams, Google Docs, Webex, Box, Echo, Microsoft Powerpoint

 Research

My first step in creating Social Work Grand Rounds was to perform user research to understand pain points and areas of interest for social workers when pursuing continuing education.

Methodology

  • Competitive audit: I pulled information from direct and indirect competitors, which included local agencies that hosted CEU trainings (direct) and websites that provides online opportunities to complete indirect trainings for CEUs. I was curious to learn what types of events were hosted, which were most popular, what topics seemed to be lacking, and what the price point was for these events.

  • Background research: I reached out to the CME Coordinator at the hospital, as well as the CEU Coordinator at the Oregon Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) to establish an understanding of CME/CEU requirements and to name Social Work Grand Rounds as an accredited provider of continuing education credits

  • User research:

    • I facilitated an in-person meeting with stakeholders (hospital social workers) in order to understand strengths and areas for improvement with local CEU offerings. This session was an hour in length and provided an open discussion forum for feedback. I also asked for individuals to reach out to me if they were interested in being a part of the planning committee

    • I shared a survey with social workers via email, which included five questions specifically focused on areas of interest (desired speakers and topics) as well as preferred format (in-person or virtual, conversational or lecture-focused)

Conclusions included:

  • Direct competitor trainings were in the range of $100 - $500 for 3-12 CEUs, which was cost prohibitive to many users

  • Trainings focused on ethics, social justice, burnout, and supervision were less common and in high demand

  • Indirect competitors provided monthly or yearly memberships, or pay-per-credit options. Although users find these options helpful for completing CEU requirements, the quality of the content was less satisfactory

 Process

Speaker recruitment and coordination

I hosted a meeting with the Social Work Grand Rounds Planning Committee in order to brainstorm potential speakers who could provide expert training in the areas of interest that were defined in user research. I identified task owners who would reach out to each prospective speaker, as well as a deadline by which time we would circle back to the committee with updates.

I created a visual outline of the year’s event schedule with proposed dates and times and uploaded it to Box for shared tracking as we confirmed final dates with our speakers.

Once speakers were confirmed, I create long-form copy email templates that could be used to update speakers on the details of the events and what information was needed from them. All committee members used these templates to coordinate with identified speakers.

Marketing and invitations

I developed templates for monthly flyers and emailed invitations to ensure all marketing materials and written communication used consistent terminology and brand language.

Usability testing

30 users (all social workers at the hospital) were asked to participate in an unmoderated usability study, which included review of an event invitation and the completion of five tasks associated with navigating event invites and attending the event.

Research questions:

  • Are users able to quickly locate information regarding upcoming events?

  • How easy is it for users to find the survey link to complete in order to obtain CEUs or CME?

  • What challenges do users encounter when attempting to view events virtually?

  • Are users able to track the dates and times of scheduled events?

 Impact

This series provided valuable CEUs on important topics to hospital social workers.

Although the series was originally formed with my hospital’s social workers in mind, it grew to meet additional identified needs by being open to social workers in the surrounding community as well as healthcare professionals from other disciplines (physicians, physician assistants, nurses, hospital leadership). Events grew from 40 in-hospital social work attendees to hosting over 150 attendees from across the United States and multiple disciplines, although the series always remained true to its original vision.

Social workers have reported high levels of satisfaction with the event series and appreciate the interdisciplinary attendance as a valuable opportunity to educate other healthcare disciplines about the expertise and scope of practice of social workers.

Accessibility

Pain points of cost, physical accessibility and auditory accessibility were addressed in this event by offering free CEU credits, options for remote attendance, and closed captioning for all events.

Conclusions

Also this project was not specifically UX Writing, I believe it highlights the strengths and experience that I bring to a UX Writing role:

  • Empathizing with the user, defining the user challenge, and ideating on potential solutions

  • Writing copy (long form, microcopy)

  • Developing and working within brand guidelines

  • Coordinating with cross-functional teams to complete a project that works for a diverse group of users

  • Completing user research and testing to ensure solutions are user-focused

  • Complex problem solving

  • Task completion with set deadlines while juggling multiple obligations

  • Use of technology to support remote work, collaboration, and accessibility