Whiting & Birch (E-Journals)
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Better integration of education and practice? Promoting research-based social work
Get PDFThis article deals with development work that aimed at promoting a better integration of social work university education and social work practice. The development work incorporated the academic world into the working life of social workers in rural areas. As a result, a permanent university-agency network was established, consisting of a university-coordinated networked infrastructure of 26 significant employer organisations (municipalities and nongovernmental organisations). Seminars, workgroups and a continuing education course for practice educators were modelled and realised as network activities. The network has enhanced collaboration. To support the aims of social work education to promote the use of scientific methods and techniques in practice, a significant structure for better interaction with the practice field has been created. Practitioners do have enthusiasm for development work and it is essential in terms of research-based social work as to how this is resourced, supported and utilised by educational solutions. However, in addition to the university-practice relationship, the relationship between individuals and their employer agencies is also key in terms of escalating learning into the organisational context
The beginning stages of a social action training event
Get PDFThis article describes in detail how social action trainers approach the beginning stages of the groupwork process, which is recognised as a crucial stage in the formation of any group. Examples of how group members are facilitated to get to know each other, agree the purposes of the group, their expectations and the ground rules which should operate are presented under the headings of ‘introductions and warmups’, ‘identity’, ‘purpose’ and ‘methods’, drawing particularly on the experience of social action groupwork with Russian social workers and American teachers. Certain exercises have been found to be particularly helpful in achieving group cohesion and purpose and these are described. The role of the facilitator and the advantages of co-working in these circumstances are discussed briefly
Making rotational field placements work
Get PDFThis paper describes the development and successful pilot of rotational placements by the social work faculty of a large Canadian university. Modifications required for the pilot are discussed, particularly related to recruiting settings, enlisting field instructors and students, developing new field materials, training field instructors in the model and developing an evaluation tool used by field instructors and students. The strengths, limitations and lessons learned from the experience are discussed as well as the potential usefulness of rotational placements as an approach to addressing resource challenges in field education
Globalized consumer culture
Get PDFGlobalised consumer culture and its corresponding ethos that accumulation of material possessions equates to happiness are having a profound impact on the physical, social and emotional health of human beings. For social work practitioners and field educators the issue is how we balance the charge to serve our clients without unwittingly forcing them into a system that is designed by its very nature to increase their dissatisfaction and alienation. This essay discusses these concerns and offers some initial suggestions for how social work may respond
Group supervision for social work students on placement
Get PDFPartnership Care West is a voluntary organisation that contracts with the Northern Ireland Social Care Council (NISCC) to provide ten placements for social work students. NISCC is a statutory organisation, with responsibility for registering and regulating social care/work, improving standards in education and training and standardising practice in Northern Ireland NISCC (2003).The students attend the practice learning centre and are then given placements in voluntary sector sites established by the centre. Traditionally, the students were supervised on a one to one basis using the long arm approach. In recent years however, the centre has developed a model for supervising these students in groups.Building on my positive experience of conducting group supervision and to further my knowledge, skills and values in this area, I recently undertook an international comparison with the School of Social Work in Haifa Israel. This School has an already well established model for supervising students in groups and I hoped that I could learn something to help me develop my model further. I would like to thank Nava Arkin at the University of Haifa for her willingness to take part in this comparison and for her encouragement throughout. This article aims to outline my findings of the comparison and outline the theoretical constructs that make international comparisons in social work possible
Failing to fail students in the caring professions
Get PDFThis article represents a personal view of the phenomenon of professionals ‘failing to fail’ students of questionable competence. It is mainly drawn from the author’s experience first as a practice teacher, then as a lecturer and manager of a social work qualifying programme and recently as tutor of a programme preparing social workers and others to become practice teachers and assessors. The article first examines aspects of the process of practice assessment and then argues that the turnover amongst those given this responsibility means that the expertise appropriate to undertaking such a complex task is difficult to accumulate. It then offers some remedies that focus more on organisational responses than simply on the individual professionals who take on this essential responsibility.Much of the recent concern about social work practice teaching and assessing has focussed on the question of quantity. Getting enough practice learning opportunities is a perennial problem in itself- but this article addresses an issue of quality, namely ensuring that both pass and fail decisions are made with confidence.As the author’s background is social work in England, the article will use social work terminology and refer to social work and other documents from the English context, but he hopes that readers from other professions and countries will find the debate useful.This article is developed from a talk given by the author at the fifth International Conference on Practice Teaching and Field Education in Health and Social Work, York, 10-12 July 2006
A model to support the development of courtroom skills
Get PDFSummary: There is widespread interest on the part of social work degree students in developing their courtroom skills within a framework of learning about social work law, but it is often not until they qualify and are ‘thrown in at the deep end’ that anyone gives any serious thought to the need for preparation and skills development in this area. As a result, students and newly-qualified social workers are frequently apprehensive about court work, which means that they do not always do themselves, or the people who use social work services, justice when faced with court involvement. This article offers a model for practice assessors to use with students in agencies where court work is undertaken, and encourages skills development against a foundation of critical analysis and reflection. The term ‘practice assessor’ has been adopted by the General Social Care Council in preference to the previously widely-used term ‘practice teacher’ to describe the person responsible for facilitating learning and supervising and assessing social work students in practice. Within this model, ‘practice assessor’ is interchangeable with ‘practice teacher’, and indeed most of the suggested learning activities primarily involve a facilitative or teaching, rather than an assessment, role
The evaluation of an interdisciplinary learning initiative in managing depression
Get PDFThis paper reports the findings from a descriptive study exploring community-nursing students’ experiences of interdisciplinary learning on managing depression. The study was completed as part of a specialist module workshop included in a post-registration community specialist practitioner programme. Questionnaire data included attitude ratings and qualitative evaluations of problem-based learning (PBL). A cohort of 34 community nurses responded. The findings identified issues relating to the learning process and its influence on the knowledge gained and attitudes to team work. Community nurses reported the workshop was thought provoking and the challenging issue is the different opinions of the district nurses role in managing depression from the perspective of the students. This study suggests that problem based learning had a positive impact on students’ learning which makes it a well-received contribution to learning. It also reinforced the importance of healthy attitudes towards collaboration in promoting mental health practice. All of these do ultimately have implications for clinical practice
