Members of the SIM Lab recently published .

This article offers social work educators a practical look at how standardized clients can be prepared for simulation-based teaching. It invites readers into the actor training process — including working through case vignettes, practicing mock simulations, and learning how to manage emotional intensity and provide feedback from the client’s perspective.

Drawing on the authors’ simulation programs, the paper outlines steps that can support consistent, ethical, and effective use of actors in social work classrooms.

This article was published in as part of the special edition, “Simulation in Clinical Social Work: Evolving with the Times”. The special edition is a great place for lots of fabulous simulation resources.

The post Now Available- Training Actors: A Primer for Social Work Educators Working with Standardized Clients (SCs) in Classroom Simulations appeared first on SIM Social Work Research Lab.

Drs. Stephanie Baird (Lab Affiliate), Mariama Diallo and Sarah Tarshis (Lab Associate) were at the 2025 Symposium on Child and Youth Trauma in Montreal this week. They presented their research study that seeks to gain a better understanding of how intimate partner violence (IPV) service providers engage in trauma-informed practice in a simulated session with a standardized patient.

Interested in more? See their paper: Tarshis, S., McQuaid, J.M., Diallo, M., Baird., S.B. & Asakura., K. (2024). Using simulation to train service providers in responding to intimate partner violence (IPV) and trauma. Families in Society. 1-15. 

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New article alert! Lindy Van Vliet, alongside other scholars including the Lab’s Research Associate Sarah Tarshis, Co-Director Katherine Occhiuto, Director Sarah Todd, Lab Manager and Research Coordinator Ruxi Gheorghe, and Lab Affiliate Pamela Grassau, recently published the article titled . The article was published in the social work journal, , and it is available open-access for free!

Feminist research methods have been historically collaborative and team-based, using the expertise of multiple researchers to analyze complex social problems. However, while feminist research teams often aim to be non-hierarchal and push against pre-existing power structures, they still exist within the neoliberal university which mediates how this resistance shows up. This article reflects on how a relational ethics of care can act as a disruptor to neoliberal academia. It offers reflections from a feminist research group on how they adopted a relational ethics of care and the impact it had on the research process. This article is not meant to be a guidebook for how to show care and resist neoliberal academic structure, but rather as a contribution to the ongoing conversations about how research teams can show up for each other and ourselves as researchers and beyond. The authors share this story in an attempt to foster a hopefulness within the messiness of relational research processes that have the potential to cultivate more compassionate and caring ways to conduct research.

Check out the article —it is available open access!

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New article alert! Our Lab Research Associate Sarah Tarshis, alongside other scholars including the Lab’s Co-Director Katherine Occhiuto, Research Associate Karen Sewell, Lab Manager and Research Coordinator Ruxi Gheorghe, and Lab Director Sarah Todd, recently published the article . The article was published in journal, and it highlights a portion of the findings from the SIM Lab’s recent project, “Knowing and Not Knowing: Navigating Uncertainty in Social Work Practice, (2020-2024).“

Social workers constantly face uncertainty in their practice as they navigate complex and unpredictable situations. Although supervision can be an essential tool in supporting them to manage the uncertainty they encounter, the specific elements of supervision experienced as supportive are not well captured in the literature.

Findings from a simulation-based study with 22 clinical social workers reveal how supervision can address uncertainty. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews identified four elements of supervision: normalizing uncertainty as expected in practice, providing an opportunity to receive feedback, creating a space to engage in reflection, and fostering a trusting and professional relationship.

Check out the article !

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Congratulations! On December 10th 2024, the academic social work journal awarded one of our articles, , as the 2024 Best Research Note published with Families in Society! 

The article was authored by the Lab’s Founding Director Kenta Asakura, Co-Director Katherine Occhiuto, Research Associate Sarah Tarshis, Lab Manager and Research Coordinator Ruxi Gheorghe, and Director Sarah Todd. The use of simulation as a part of research design is relatively new in social work, and little is known about how simulations can be combined with well-established qualitative research methods. Drawing on two study examples, the article proposes guidelines for how simulations can be incorporated in qualitative research on complex practice competencies essential for enhancing the quality of health and social services. In doing so, the authors highlight how simulation can further advance qualitative research on social work practice.

Although the article is redistricted access, please get in touch with us directly if you’d like a PDF copy emailed to you!

Again, congratulations to the team!

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New article alert! Our Lab Research Associate Sarah Tarshis, alongside other scholars including the Lab’s Founding Director Kenta Asakura, recently published the article . The article was published in the journal, and it highlights the findings from Dr. Tarshis’ post-doctoral fellowship research at the SIM Lab throughout Spring and Summer 2022.

This study uses simulation-based research (SBR) to gain a better understanding of how intimate partner violence (IPV) service providers (n = 18) engage in trauma-informed practice with an actor portraying a survivor of IPV experiencing vulnerabilities related to violence and immigration status.The survivor of IPV, played by the trained actor, was named “Taraji.” Participants engaged in a simulated counselling session and worked to explore Taraji’s various intersecting challenges related to immigration status (e.g., deportation threats), culture (e.g., use of religion to justify violence), and other traumatic experiences.

Through the findings, the article suggests that simulation can help build trauma-informed responses that highlight intersecting identities (e.g., race, immigration status, culture), and that simulation can be used to train service providers in responding to IPV. This is particularly important given that IPV service provision is complex and requires service providers to attend to multiple aspects of violence, trauma, identity, culture, and service need—a task which many students and new service providers may feel overwhelmed or unprepared to work with survivors of IPV who have experienced trauma (Tarshis & Baird, 2019).

Check out the article —it is available open access!

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Are you attending the 2024 virtual conference? Join us virtually at ICQI on Thursday May 30th 2024 at 2PM EST for a presentation from the SIM Lab’s recent work!

Our Lab Co-Director Katherine Occhiuto will be presenting “Are the promises of reflective social work practice more assumed than actual? A simulation-based research study exploring some limits of critical reflection” which is sharing a portion of the results from our Uncertainty project. This presentation will also be speaking on our recently-published article, , which was published in the British Journal of Social Work.

We’d love to see you there! For more information and conference registration, please visit the official ICQI .

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Come join us in Montreal, Quebec from June 17-20 2024 for The Canadian Association for Social Work Education’s (CASWE) 2024 annual conference: !

In Montreal? Come join us! Members of the SIM Lab will be presenting two presentations.

The first presentation will be led by the SIM Lab’s Research Associate Sarah Tarshis, alongside Lab Co-Director Katherine Occhiuto, Research Associate Karen Sewell, Lab Manager Ruxi Gheorghe, and Lab Director Sarah Todd. This presentation is titled, “Practice considerations for supervising social workers navigating uncertainty in practice: A simulation study” and it will be held on Thursday June 20th at 8AM.

Shortly after, the second presentation will be led by the SIM Lab’s Director Sarah Todd, alongside Lab Affiliates Toula Kourgiantakis and Barbara Lee, Lab Co-Director Katherine Occhiuto, and Research Associates Karen Sewell and Sarah Tarshis. This presentation is titled, “The use of Simulation in Canadian schools of social work: A conversation to support collaborative innovations” and it will be held on Thursday June 20th at 9:45AM.

We’d love to see you there! For more information and conference registration, please visit the official CASWE conference .

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New article alert! Have you seen our new publication in ? Our Lab Co-Director Katherine Occhiuto, Research Associate Sarah Tarshis, Director Sarah Todd, and Lab Manager and Research Coordinator Ruxi Gheorghe recently published an article! The article is titled and is available open access!

Although reflection has become a core concept in social work education, this article explores some of the limitations of reflective practice. This simulation-based study recruited 34 participants across Canada to engage in two clinical simulations, each followed by an interview which included observing segments of their video-recorded simulations. While conducting the post-simulation interviews, our team kept noting significant divergences between what participants said they did in session, and what we observed. These divergences of participants’ reflections on their clinical practice versus their actual behaviour became the foundation of this article.

Ultimately, this article suggests that reflection can often be misaligned, grounded in distorted memory or bias and tied to wishful—yet sometimes inaccurate—perceptions of self. This research underscores the need to understand reflection as a situated and ongoing practice that is based on fluid notions of multiple selves. Although much reflective practice is currently framed as an independent exercise, results show the productive potential of collective reflection on recordings of simulations to challenge memory distortions and retrospective biases and promote greater accountability to ourselves, others and clients.

The article is accessible and available online , or you can access a PDF version of the article by clicking the following link: 2024 – Occhiuto et al – Reflecting on Reflection

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On Saturday January 13th 2024, SIM Lab Manager and Research Coordinator Ruxi Gheorghe presented at the Society for Social Work and Research’s (SSWR) annual conference in Washington, DC. The presentation, written by SIM Lab Research Associate Dr. Sarah Tarshis and Ruxi Gheorghe, was titled Insights and Reflections from Social Workers on the Role of Supervision in Addressing Uncertainty in Practice: A Simulation-Based Research Study.

The presentations is based on Dr. Sarah Tarshis’ unpublished paper entitled Insights From Social Workers on the Role of Supervision in Addressing Uncertainty in Practice: A Simulation-Based Research Study, and builds on the larger project, Knowing and Not Knowing: Navigating Uncertainty in Social Work Practice, (2020-2024; PI: SIM Lab Director Dr. Sarah Todd).

The presentation highlighted the key role of supervision in supporting social workers navigating moments of uncertainty in their practice.

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