Program Information Emergency Department Social Work Intern
The Emergency Department Social Work Internship provides students with comprehensive, hands-on experience supporting patients and families across the lifespan in a fast-paced acute-care environment. Under the supervision of a medical clinical social worker, the intern will work with youth, adolescents, and adults presenting with a wide range of medical, behavioral health, psychosocial, and crisis-related needs.
The Emergency Department Social Work Intern will collaborate closely with physicians, nurses, psychiatrists, residents, case managers, and other members of the interdisciplinary healthcare team. The intern will also work with community partners, including law enforcement, emergency medical services, fire departments, psychiatric facilities, community agencies, and other service providers involved in patient care and disposition planning.
The intern may participate in the hospital’s trauma response process and assist with the psychosocial needs of patients experiencing serious or life-threatening medical emergencies. These situations may include motor vehicle collisions, traumatic injuries, respiratory distress, cardiac arrest, and other acute medical conditions. In these circumstances, the intern may support the medical team by helping identify patients who arrive without identification, locating and contacting family members, gathering collateral information, and communicating updates between the patient’s support system and the medical team when appropriate.
Emergency Department social workers serve as liaisons between patients, families, physicians, nurses, first responders, and community partners. The Social Work Intern will have opportunities to observe and assist with communication and coordination during high-acuity situations while maintaining patient dignity, confidentiality, cultural responsiveness, and trauma-informed care. The intern may also provide emotional support to patients and families coping with fear, uncertainty, serious injury, sudden illness, grief, loss, or unexpected changes in medical status.
The intern will also gain experience supporting patients and families following a death in the Emergency Department. Under appropriate supervision, the intern may assist with the administrative and psychosocial aspects of the immediate after-death process, including completing and coordinating required documentation, supporting patient identification procedures, communicating with family members, contacting and coordinating with mortuaries or funeral homes, and assisting families with the release of remains. The intern will help families navigate immediate decisions, procedures, and available resources following a death while providing compassionate, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed support. This experience is distinct from postmortem care, which is performed by nursing staff.
In addition to trauma, acute medical response, and after-death support, the intern will support patients experiencing mental health concerns, substance use disorders, suicidal ideation, behavioral crises, and other psychosocial challenges. The intern may assist with psychosocial assessments, safety and risk assessments, crisis intervention, therapeutic engagement, family support, behavioral health referrals, and coordination of psychiatric services for youth, adolescents, and adults.
The Social Work Intern will also gain experience with discharge planning and care coordination. Responsibilities may include helping patients and families identify appropriate caregiving resources, arranging referrals to community-based services, supporting safe discharge plans, identifying barriers to returning home, and assisting families who are seeking placement or additional support for loved ones who are no longer able to safely manage at home. The intern may work with skilled nursing facilities, rehabilitation programs, residential care settings, home health agencies, hospice providers, shelters, substance use treatment programs, outpatient behavioral health providers, and other community resources.
The internship provides opportunities to support individuals and families experiencing homelessness, interpersonal violence, neglect, abuse, financial hardship, limited social support, caregiver stress, grief, loss, and other circumstances that affect health and safety. Under appropriate supervision, the intern may assist with mandated reporting processes, safety planning, resource navigation, advocacy, and coordination with protective service agencies and community partners.
Through this experience, the Emergency Department Social Work Intern will develop skills in crisis intervention, psychosocial assessment, trauma-informed care, grief and loss support, suicide and safety risk assessment, substance use intervention, mental health support, family communication, after-death support, discharge planning, resource coordination, patient advocacy, and interdisciplinary collaboration. The intern will learn to respond flexibly to rapidly changing clinical situations while maintaining professionalism, empathy, sound judgment, and respect for patient autonomy.
This internship offers a broad introduction to the role of social work in emergency medicine. The intern will gain experience supporting patients and families during some of the most vulnerable and critical moments of their lives while learning how social workers contribute to patient identification, family reunification, crisis response, medical decision-making support, death notification and after-death processes, safe disposition, and continuity of care across hospital and community settings.
The Emergency Department Social Work Intern will be encouraged to develop increasing independence in clinical observation, assessment, communication, intervention, and care coordination while receiving ongoing supervision and support from experienced emergency department social workers and interdisciplinary healthcare professionals.