Whiting & Birch (E-Journals)
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Hic sunt dracones: Here be dragons! Difficulties in mapping the demand for social work placements in New Zealand
Get PDFAnecdotal evidence suggests that the growth in demand for social work field placements in New Zealand is outstripping supply and impacting on placement quality. However, to date, no systematic study of placement demand or supply in New Zealand has been published. Our study sought to identify the number of students placed during 2012, their placement setting (government or non-government), whether they were supervised by a Registered Social Worker (RSW), and whether they had on-site supervision. It combined secondary analysis of the annual reports of recognised programmes to the Social Workers Registration Board with a survey of seven tertiary institutions. We found that students placed in government settings were three times more likely to experience on-site supervision by an RSW, but that the majority of placements were in non-government settings. The study also uncovered significant problems with the integrity of the annual report data collected and recommendations for improvements are outlined in this article
What do you say after ‘hello’? Connecting social work students to placement
Get PDFPractice learning placements are profound experiences for students. Starting placement is daunting, regardless of the student’s stage in their programme. This paper draws on change and transition theory, along with practice evidence, to understand some of the process issues facing students moving from academic to service settings. It then describes an introductory morning that has been developed to acknowledge these aspects and support the students’ arrival in the agency
Enhancing the practice learning experiences of BME students: Strategies for practice education
Get PDFPractice learning, also known as field education or practicum is central to social work education not only in the UK, but also in countries such as the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. It presents students with opportunities to integrate academic learning and practice experience with people, their families, communities and environments, and enables the development and enhancement of key skills and social work values. In England, recent studies have highlighted the disparity between black students and white students in terms of progression and attainment on social work qualifying programmes, and practice placements are becoming notorious as sites of difficulty for many students from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds. This paper focuses on a sub-group (black African students), an ethnic minority group with a unique set of characteristics which have been found to contribute to their specific experiences of practice education in the UK.This paper outlines some strategies which have been proposed by black African students as necessary and central to enhancing their practice learning experiences and outcomes on social work programmes. This article was developed from a paper presented to the International Conference on Practice Learning in Scotland (4-7 April 2014)
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: A disability in need of social work education, knowledge and practice
Get PDFFetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is a non-diagnostic umbrella term that describes a range of effects that can occur as a result of a mother consuming alcohol during pregnancy (SAMSHA, 2014). Awareness of the need for professionals to become educated on FASD has emerged as a critical topic in the field of social work and child welfare practice specifically. The social work practice response to children and families, in order to be effective, must develop and emerge from an FASD Informed Practice lens – which implies particular knowledge and competencies in practice. This article will highlight the need to recognize FASD as a disabling condition and identify why training and knowledge is essential in order to work effectively with children and families. Further, an educational pathway to FASD informed practice in relation to a broad array of interventions and enabling/supportive approaches relevant to social work theory will be identified. The focus of this paper is to identifying why knowledge and education on FASD is important to social work practice
Editorial to the special issue: Social work research and social justice
No full textThis is the editorial to the special issue: Social work research and social justic
‘No sanctuary’: Missed opportunities in health and social services for homeless people with dyslexia?
Get PDFThis paper examines the relationship between dyslexia, homelessness and access to health and social services. This is a quantitative study analysing data from the Multiple Exclusion Homelessness across the United Kingdom Survey. Data was collected from 443 participants who had experienced some form of homelessness in the UK. A comparison was made between people with dyslexia and those homeless people without this condition. The data findings in this paper appear to reveal that people with dyslexia are overrepresented within the survey’s homeless population. It may be expected that people with dyslexia might not come in contact with health professionals and social workers as support for this condition generally takes place within an educational environment. Yet this study seems to indicate that homeless people with dyslexia have greater contact with health professionals and social workers compared with non-dyslexic homeless people. This paper suggests that health and social services need to consider conditions like dyslexia in order to develop support for this particular group of people that have experienced homelessness
Valuing experience in a baccalaureate social work class on human behavior
Get PDFSocial problems are best understood through active engagement in the community, experiences that bring to light the social problems at hand. Social work education lends itself especially to practical application and experience, as addressing social welfare problems can never be entirely theoretical. Experiential education offers social work students such an opportunity, and the social work field experience offers social work students an opportunity for applied learning.Kolb’s theory of experiential adult learning, which argues that adults learn through concrete experiences, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation, provides a useful framework for understanding the importance of experiential learning in social work education. In this paper, I discuss Kolb’s contribution to adult learning theory, particularly how his theory built upon previous conceptual frameworks for understanding the adult learner. I also apply Kolb’s theory to my own learning and social work education practice. Finally, I reflect upon how my own learning experiences inform my understanding of Kolb’s experiential learning theory and my current perspective as a social work educator in a baccalaureate social work human behavior class in the United States
Personalisation and disabled people: The rhetoric and the reality. A discussion paper regarding aspects of the transformation agenda
Get PDFThis critical discussion draws on the authors’ personal and professional experiences of personalisation. It argues that personalisation is a persuasive concept, constructed by political rhetoric, but requiring careful evaluation of its meaning and purpose. It has been progressively developed over the last few years as a guiding principle in the provision of social care services to people in the UK. For disabled people this has meant significant changes in the way services are delivered and the opportunity to receive support through means of direct payments or personal budgets, enabling them to have greater choice and control over the services they receive. In principle this should allow services to be tailored to individual needs by supporting disabled people to employ personal assistants and design their own packages of care. Whilst this has been a positive development in people’s lives, the idea of personalisation has been subject to many critiques. These will be discussed, and it will be argued that real improvements in people’s lives are not just dependent on receiving individualised funding. Wider structural issues, as well as prevailing attitudes and understandings of disability in society and by professionals, are critical to consider, if the physical and social barriers which obstruct people’s access to valued social roles and lives in the community are to be removed. For services and practitioners to become more enabling, there needs to be more awareness of and sensitivity towards values and messages inherent in the social model of disability and, on a more practical level, towards the sheer complexities of managing budgets and personal assistants. Through the experience of one disabled person, important factors impacting on the reality of personalisation will be considered, with the intention of deepening our understanding of the experience of personalisation beyond the popular rhetoric