Whiting & Birch (E-Journals)
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Digitising Experience: The Creation and Application of Immersive Simulations in the Context of Social Work Training
No full textBackground: Detailed and elaborate spatial simulations are commonly used in the education and training of healthcare professionals. Learners benefit from replica operating theatres and clinical skills environments that enable them to gain insight from the hands-on aspect of authentic scenarios that permit them to apply there what they have learned in context. However, these physical recreations are expensive to build extremely rare in the context of social work training. Digital learning spaces are typically two dimensional. Virtual learning environments (VLEs) consist of pages that can be scrolled through and content such as text, images and video, which can be embedded to provide learners with input material and tasks. In this paper, we will explore the creation and deployment of three-dimensional digital spaces that afford social work students the opportunity to explore and interact within simulations of authentic real-world environments.Objectives:We will also examine how digital inscription—the addition of information such as questions, prompts and interactive media—can be used to support students in the development of observation skills and critical thinking. Our objective is to improve the learning experience for social work students, train safer social workers, and explore the feasibility of using digital simulations to train real-world skills.Method: Within all UK social work training programmes there is an expectation that students will practise skills in a suitable environment prior to service-user contact. Therefore, we decided to investigate the practicalities and impact of creating immersive digital media to explore real-world scenarios that would otherwise be extremely challenging to access at this point in their training. For instance, a service user’s home and a psychiatric facility. This included a number of 360-degree immersive exercises to facilitate deep learning through the act of placing oneself in the shoes of another in order to understand their behaviour. This approach to teaching and learning has the added benefit of not only aiding meaningful learning, but also supporting students’ development of a wide range of social and professional skills.Outcome: This is an ongoing multi-disciplinary project and, so far, the results indicate that students engaging with the 360-degree video scenarios have been able to grasp threshold concepts that would otherwise been difficult to teach. In addition to this, there is also accumulating evidence that the use of this technology has produced higher levels of engagement and an overall improvement in module evaluation. Data is still being collected and the results will be shared at the workshop in 2018. These training packages have been integrated into other health courses, including mental health nursing and approved mental health professional (AMHP) training.Implications: The application of immersive, interactive digital learning scenarios will improve learning and have a positive effect on student engagement and satisfaction
Working with a women’s group in Titilaka, Peru to form a knitting association – an example of value based groupwork
Get PDFThis paper discusses in detail just one group meeting utilizing the social action group work approach for a group of women in Peru wishing to establish themselves as a knitting association. We describe the context of the work and the different elements and challenges when facilitating the workshop. The meeting was part of a community development process supported by an NGO Amantani and a local hotel – Hotel Titilaka. The facilitators of the session – Author 1 and Author 2 - are both European
´In Good Spirits´ and the Achievement of Material Satisfaction: Evidence from Argentina
Get PDFPrevious literature has been committed to study the impact of socio-economic variables on material life satisfaction and to study the impact on mental health on emotional life satisfaction. However, not many studies has investigated the impact of mental health over material life satisfaction. This paper has two main objectives: it explores the elements that increase satisfaction in Argentinean men and women according to their self-reports, and to study the influence of socioeconomic variables and the absence of pathological symptoms in the prediction of emotional and material satisfaction. One thousand twelve Argentinean participants were included in this study, about 47.4% were male and age ranged from 18 to 91 years. Concerning the first objective, results have shown that earn more money and personal fulfillment at work comes up with a 46.6% of the answers in men and 37.83% in women. But, paradoxically, the second objective evidences that socioeconomical variables are associated with material satisfaction but not with emotional satisfaction while absence of pathological symptoms are related to both material and emotional satisfaction
Deliver us from evil: The role of faith and family in coping with stress among African migrants in Australia
Get PDFThe paper examines stressors affecting involuntary and voluntary African migrants in Australia and how they cope with stress. Using semi-structured interviews, the paper examines the experiences of 30 African migrants in Australia. Most participants used a diversity of strategies including the reliance of God and family –usually constructed by alliance rather than kinship -to cope with stress. The key contribution of the paper is to go beyond traditional integration strategies to highlight the significance of God and family as remedies to ‘deliver’ the migrants from the obstacles to effective resettlement and psychological healing.Keywords: African migrants; stress; God; family; resettlement; coping strategies
Simulation based learning in practice with interprofessional students: organic disruptive simulation and golden teachable moments
Get PDFEnhancing collaborative practice through Interprofessional education/learning is essential preparation for future health and social work student. This must not only sit within the universities but can be achieved in practice placement areas such as teaching rooms and the coffee room. Simulation based education is used to deliver a suite of low-fidelity simulations in practice for the overt student rehearsal of the multi-disciplinary team meeting. An unexpected outcome of this project was the development of a simulation debriefing technique and coaching style that transcend the boundaries of traditional simulation debriefing to one of coaching conversations and enhancing interprofessional education/learning
The significance of grit from social support and health determinants
No full textNon-cognitive skills are known to be influenced by the environment, especially regarding health and social support. One emerging non-cognitive skill is grit that can be defined as a success measure among low-income adults. It has been studied mostly among school-age children as it relates to academic success however little attention has paid to grit in workforce development. This is important to recognize as two identifiers for workforce success are social support and health. This paper aims to investigate the effects of health and social support on grit. Regression analysis was completed on 520 low-income, job seeking adults. A series of multiple regression results indicate that social support and health—physical, emotional, and general—have statistically significant independently and combined effects on grit. This finding is important for workforce development practitioners to understand when working with job seeking clients who are having difficulty in demonstrating the necessary tenacity to continue the path to achieve employment goals.