The Practicum Proposal.

Your practicum proposal is the first step in turning your internship or project into an official practicum. You will have many chances to update the information and can go in and update the information before prompted as well if needed. Since your hours do not start counting until you are registered for PH976, it’s important to submit your proposal as early as possible. In order to submit your proposal, you will need to collect some information about your practicum. The following section is a detailed breakdown of the information needed, and a description of the review process.

Please keep in mind most of the information in your proposal may be modified at a later date, so what you submit does not have to be concrete.

Click Here to Visit the BUSPH Practicum Portal

The proposal will ask you basic information:

• Where you are doing your practicum. If you are working remote make sure you still list the organization name, but you can list “remote” as the location.
• Who your primary preceptor is. Your primary preceptor will be the person doing your reviews, your alternative will be a back up and will not receive emails.
• Your start, end date, average hours per week, and total hours to be worked. Please adhere to the academic timelines when considering these dates, and that your practicum dates must be in the future as hours cannot be back-dated. We do not ask for timesheets. Hours worked do not need to account for working more or less certain weeks.
• If you are paid or unpaid and how much you are to be paid. You can also indicate if you are being paid through funding at SPH (i.e. Generation Health)

Your practicum description is sort of the abstract to your practicum. It is a detailed description, on average about 2 paragraphs, and should NOT be a copy and paste of your job description. The practicum description should meet the following criteria:

• Introduce your organization and mission. If your organization is a hospital or health department that is a common practicum site it’s a good idea to introduce your particular unit and/or project mission or goal instead.
• Detail your project. Provide some specific details on the project you will be assigned.
• Highlight your role & tasks. Explain what you will specifically be doing on this project.

All of this should be written in the first person point of view and should give your reviewers a solid idea of what your practicum will consist of.

The goal of all CEPH accredited MPH programs is to demonstrate 5 public health competencies through deliverables. During your proposal you will select which 5 competencies you anticipate meeting during your 240+ hours. There are two sets of competencies, foundational competencies, which are CEPH-written, and functional competencies, which are BU SPH-written and CEPH approved. For your practicum you must select:

• Three foundational competencies
• Two additional competencies, which may be in any of the following combinations: two more foundational, two functional from your certificate(s), or one foundational AND one functional.

Competencies are written to be intentionally vague so they may be adapted in multiple public health settings, so try not to get too caught up in the literacy of the text. You will be explaining to the school how these competencies will be met through your practicum.

You will also think about the work of your practicum and map your activities to the competencies you chose to begin thinking about how your work aligns with the selected competencies. At the Midpoint Review you will also be mapping at least two deliverables to your competencies.

To see the list of competencies, visit the practicum Blackboard site under course PH976. The Blackboard site for practicum will expand on all timelines, policies, and procedures. It will always have the most up-to-date information on the practicum.

When you submit your proposal it must go through a two-step review process. This completion of this process confirms your practicum and prompts the Registrar to add PH976 to your transcript in all semesters that correspond with the dates you include in the proposal. The review process includes:

1. Your practicum site preceptor
2. SPH practicum staff

Note: your midpoint review and final review will be reviewed by these two people AND a BUSPH faculty member as well.

Any reviewer can “not approve” your proposal which simply means they are asking questions or requiring edits/more information in certain areas of your proposal. This review process can take up to three weeks so it’s important to submit as early as possible.