Boston University professor Luz Lopez said it pains her to see track marks on her research subjects when she takes students to Puerto Rico to learn how to work with drug users. Still, she said the tough lessons are invaluable experience.

“For me, doing this research is reaching out and offering them hope,” she said.

Lopez leads School of Social Work students through the Puerto Rico Experience Program during three-week summer sessions to pick up techniques the future social workers will be able to use any where. Her goal is for students to see whether ample health care and rehabilitation services are available there.

“We are here to learn about drug use to improve access to services and reduce risk of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases,” Lopez said. “Puerto Rico has the fourth highest rate of HIV. We want to help.”

After founding the program in 2006, Lopez has been using her Puerto Rican roots to teach students to work with the homeless and drug abusing population and conduct research. Since its inception, the program has evolved to include a balance of site visits and academic lectures, she said.

“I wanted to show them everything,” Lopez said. “We added more debriefing time to talk about what impacted them the most and what stereotypes they had.”

She said the information gathered by her six-member research team of students trained to work with homeless and drug-using clients is used to compare the Puerto Rican drug users in Puerto Rico to the Puerto Rican immigrant drug users in Springfield.

Her findings have shown drug users in Puerto Rico start using earlier in life and use for longer because drugs there are impure and consequentially more difficult to quit, she said. Homeless people are also sometimes hesitant to seek help or do not have the transportation or paperwork to access services they need, she said.

The program combines fieldwork and academics, collaborating with Puerto Rican universities, SSW Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Ruth Freedman said.

“The program is an intense emersion experience,” said Gail Steketee, SSW interim dean. “Many students seeking a social work career are interested in international and cultural issues . . . We are in Boston and see a wide variety of culture but [the students] haven’t been in that actual culture.”

When the students return from the trip, they present their findings and experience to the school.

“It was like music to my ears,” Freedman said. “They had the opportunity to practice, research, interview and use clinical skills.”

SSW student Katie Pratt said the experience was a mix of emotions.

“It allowed me to see to not see them as drug users or homeless, but people with a story,” she said.

Pratt said she has applied the “horizontal model” she practiced in Puerto Rico to her clinician-client relationships, which are hierarchically organized in the United States.

“It’s an empowerment model of practice, empowering them to help themselves instead of holding their hands all the way,” Pratt said. “This research project gives them a safe place to sit down and talk for a while.”