The Field Training of Social Workers
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The Field Training of Social Workers

A Survey

S. Clement Brown, E. R. Gloyne

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eBook - ePub

The Field Training of Social Workers

A Survey

S. Clement Brown, E. R. Gloyne

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About This Book

First published in 1966, the original blurb read: Learning with the help of skilled practitioners is as essential in training for social work as for medicine and teaching. Where do students of social work go for field training and why? What is it hoped that they will learn through their experience? What responsibilities are they given and who guides their learning? Partnership between social workers and academic staff in working out these questions is considered at a critical time in the changing perspectives and expansion of social services. The staff of colleges and social agencies, students, and professional organizations have helped to produce the facts and views on which this survey is based.

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Information

Publisher
Routledge
Year
2021
ISBN
9781000438703
Edition
1

1 THE PICTURE PRESENTED

Purpose of the Survey

In professions concerned with human well-being it is widely accepted that those who qualify need practice as well as study to enable them to gain knowledge, refinement of perception and competence. Most plans of training provide for systematic courses of study combined with skilled teaching or at least experienced guidance for the student while he is engaged in practice. Wide variations exist in the degree of importance attached to each aspect of learning, in timing, and in the ways in which responsibility for teaching is shared and related.
There has been little study in this country of these different patterns,1 though it is often acknowledged that standards of professional practice are of great importance to social progress.
In education for social work such problems have been discussed since training was pioneered at the beginning of the century by those who recognized it as a skilled service. The issue took on a new significance when courses were designed to meet the needs of particular services, such as medical and psychiatric social work, probation and child care. It was recognized that learning and teaching pursued in hospitals, probation departments or child guidance clinics could be as potent for the eventual wisdom of students as the exercise of thought in tutorials, lectures and libraries. At this stage there came about much more exchange between the staff engaged in both these aspects of learning. A further direction was taken when, partly as the outcome of this exchange, there was more recognition of common knowledge and principles underlying the practice of all social workers.
This Survey was planned for the following main reasons:
1 See however, for useful comparisons: Marie Jahoda, The Education of Technologists; an exploratory case study at Brunei College Tavistock Publications, 1963.
  1. Recognition that social services called for more qualified social workers.
  2. Shortage of suitable field training impeding the setting up of new courses.
  3. In courses already established, competition and frustration experienced in making satisfactory arrangements for the practical work and training of an increasing number of students.

Recent developments in training

The past twenty years has seen a series of separate Departmental inquiries into one social service after another. Each report has shewn the need for a substantial increase in the number of social workers competent to give personal service in organizations with widening responsibilities and more exacting standards. Training councils, educational bodies, professional organizations and social work agencies have been making efforts in the face of serious difficulties to provide more and better vocational education.
Two developments mark important stages. The Carnegie Young-husband surveys of the employment and training of social workers1 led to a demonstration of common principles in all social work, and resulted in the launching of a number of university courses in ā€˜applied social studiesā€™, catering for students entering a variety of services.
Secondly, in the Report of the Working Party on Social Workers in the Local Authority Health and Welfare Services2 it was recognized that the universities could not provide a sufficient number of qualified social workers. New courses were set up in educational establishments hitherto unfamiliar with this type of training. The pressure to supply more qualified staff for certain other services, such as child care and probation was at the same time leading to the extension of courses designed particularly to meet these needs. These courses were varied in pattern in the hope of attracting more recruits and of making better use of resources for field work. The issues of quantity and quality, expansion and excellence were encountered at all the cross-roads of social workers, their educators and their employers.
During each of these periods of expansion the hard thinking that had to be done in the shaping of new types of training led in itself to more appraisal of aims and standards.
1 Eileen L. Younghusband, Report on the Employment and Training of Social Workers, 1947. Social Work in Britain, A Supplementary Report on the Employment and Training of Social Workers, 1951. Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, Dunfermline, Fife. 2 Ministry of Health, Report of the Working Party on Social Workers in Local Authority Health and Welfare Services. H.M.S.O., 1959.
This particularly affected the staff of social services responsible for the practical work of students. The agencies in which this experience is planned and supervised have thus been exposed simultaneously to many new influences and pressures. At a time when they are faced by acute shortage of staff they have been urged to take more students; to give them a better standard of training; to spend much time deliberating about the aims and methods of new courses; to increase the number of special appointments of student supervisors, and to continue to welcome and to interest students at the beginning of their careers.
It is with the training responsibilities of the staff of social agencies that this study is mainly concerned. It is commonly accepted that satisfactory future developments depend upon the expansion of good opportunities for field work. To bring students to a higher level of wisdom and competence in social services faced with wider responsibilities and already having difficulty in meeting the needs of their clients is indeed a daunting prospect. It was difficult without more comprehensive facts to see how to break away from this enclosing circle of cause and effect.
It would be possible to quote figures from a variety of reports of the extent of the demand for more qualified social workers. We do not propose to do so. This is not only to avoid Parkinson jibes. Such estimates vary and are quickly dated. It can safely be assumed that in the coming decade, if allowances are made for planned increase in establishment, loss of staff and leave of absence for training for those now employed without qualification, there will be need for at least twice the number of trained staff at present employed in casework services alone. Some have placed the figure very much higher. A recent estimate, based upon predictions for a variety of services, was a threefold increase.1 Proposals for improving the extent and quality of field work and for easing the burden of those who are responsible for it, can at best achieve only a gradual advance towards this goal. This Survey was undertaken in the hope that this advance might be more purposive and consistent.

Definitions and boundaries

The first question is how to define ā€˜field workā€™. This is far from simple. The courses for which practical experience is required are not by any means all designed for or undertaken by students who intend to become social workers. Recent studies have shown that there is an increasing tendency for students who graduate in social studies to go into other types of employment.1 For such students field work may be arranged in order to enliven their thinking or to help them and their tutors to make up their minds whether social work is their ā€˜lineā€™.
1 Eileen Younghusband, D.B.E., Social Work Training and Staffing Implications of Community Care, Social Work, Vol. 22, Nos 2 and 3, April and July 1965, 22ā€“28.
The term ā€˜field workā€™ may be stretched to describe both experience of this kind and also advanced training in the use of knowledge and the refinement of skill.
It would have been simpler and in some ways more satisfactory to concentrate entirely upon the practical training of students who enter a course leading to a recognized qualification for social work and to exclude experience in the field arranged for students taking degrees, diplomas or certificates in social studies. It was evident however, that such a focus would narrow the scene in two important ways. The staff of social agencies are in fact concerned with students from all types of courses and their responsibilities and difficulties cannot be separated. In many of the services the time and ability of a limited number of staff is divided between students who need highly skilled professional education and those who are only beginning to be aware of how other people live. It was important to find out whether this variety of aims and methods was compatible and achieving satisfactory results. There seemed a possibility either that those who needed specialized teaching were not able to get it because of the claims of other students; or that students of the initial degree and diploma courses might benefit from a wider range of experience if better conditions for their field work could be planned. It was known that interesting experiments were taking place, and it seemed worth while from the point of view of courses, social agencies and students to see whether these might usefully be extended. In addition, from the point of view of individual students proceeding from initial to applied courses, the sequence as well as the nature and quality of experience was of obvious importance.
For all these reasons it was decided to define field work for purposes of the Survey in the following way:
Any kind of practical experience in a social organisation or agency if this experience has been deliberately arranged for the education of students who are undertaking courses partly or wholly designed for those who intend to become social workers.
It was necessary to set certain other boundaries to the inquiry and this was done in two ways.
1 Barbara N. Rodgers, The Careers of Social Studies Students. Occasional Papers on Social Administration, No. 11. The Codicote Press, 1964, p. 19. University Social Studies Departments Take Stock, Case Conference, Vol. II, No. 6, November 1964.
It was decided not to include certain types of kindred training different enough to give rise to other kinds of problems. This was held to apply to courses for youth leaders and youth employment officers; for residential work; for personnel officers, or primarily for administrators.
There was a further limitation of an important kind which we were soon compelled to accept. It became apparent that the problem of providing satisfactory field training rested at present mainly with casework services. However important other aspects of social work might be it seemed sensible to start where the recognized need was greatest, and where in fact most of the students were found. The Survey led naturally to the consideration of whether the training in casework agencies was based upon a broad enough study of social need, and whether in professional training as it had been developed in this country, there was too much concentration on personal services and too little upon policy and practice in the development of social resources in the community, or in group work. Already professional courses are being planned along these lines, and it will be seen that recent trends in the field work of students shows some recognition of their importance. In the time at our disposal it was not however possible to do justice to these developments, and we did not include in our detailed inquiries the field work organized, for example, by settlements or community centres or undertaken with groups, in residential establishments or elsewhere. The important and much wider subject of the purpose and scope of university departments of social science and studies and the designation of their students has already received consideration in the valuable studies of Barbara Rodgers and Kathleen Jones.1ā€™2 It was represented to us by the head of one such department that the university should, for social services, be producing people with a ā€˜questing attitudeā€™ and ā€˜attacking mindsā€™, alive to many different approaches to social problems. He deplored the fact that students could not at present even see skilled practice in fields such as work with groups or in community development. It is to be hoped that further studies along these lines will be encouraged by the questions that emerge from this look at one aspect of social work and the problems of professional education that it presents.
1 Barbara N. Rodgers, The Careers of Social Studies Students. Occasional Papers on Social Administration, No. 11. The Codicote Press, 1964. 2 Kathleen Jones, The Teaching of Social Studies in British Universities, Occasional Papers on Social Administration, No. 12. The Codicote Press, 1964.
The special programmes of field work arranged in courses particularly designed for overseas students were, reluctantly, not included.

Distinction between basic and professional courses

It was necessary to make a broad distinction between two different kinds of courses, and in doing so we followed the terminology of the Joint University Council for Social and Public Administration.1 The staff concerned with courses leading to a degree, a non-graduate certificate or a graduate diploma in social studies, insist that the word ā€˜trainingā€™ should not apply to these courses from the point of view of qualifying for social work. Un...

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