Optimising support for interns with disabilities: Lessons learned from a community of social work supervisors

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of students with disabilities enrolled in Quebec universities. This trend is also reflected in social work programs, highlighting the specific educational needs of these students, especially in relation to practical training. Internships, which are central to social work training, can indeed be a source of challenges. Faced with these challenges, supervisors sometimes feel helpless. To counteract this tendency, a learning community was put in place from 2020 to 2023. This article reports the results of a study that complemented the creation of this learning community. It details the characteristics of the community and the skills that emerged from it. The study revealed that the cognitive dimension (knowledge generated by participants in the learning community) contributed to participant learning and facilitated the identification of actions to be taken (ideological dimension). Despite the limitations of the virtual context, a learning community is an effective lever for strengthening supervisors' coaching skills.