Surviving your Social Work Placement

Karen Jones, Robert Lomax

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781137328229
• eBook ISBN: 9781350313286
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

This clear and concise textbook is an invaluable guide for students embarking on their social work placements. Packed with tips, quotes, activities and illustrations, it offers coherent advice on how to get the best out of practice learning opportunities, as well as an insight into students' perspectives for practice assessors, lecturers and practitioners. Following the process of placement, the book guides students through their preparation for practice placement modules by presenting helpful ideas and practical advice on how to overcome potential challenges and make the most of the opportunities offered to students on their placements. Written by experienced academics, this is an essential companion for students at any stage in their social work course, as well as those studying other areas of health and social care practice.

1 Getting started

This chapter will help you to …

• Understand the important role of placements in social work training

• Prepare for your placement

• Manage your first contact with the placement agency

• Get started on your placement

“You do need to get yourself organised as being in practice and being assessed can be pretty demanding. I would say to any new student getting ready for placement – get your home life sorted as far as possible.

DOMINIC third-year student

“You need to find a placement to meet your learning needs – I didn’t really engage in the process early enough. Try to open a dialogue with the university about what you want to get out of your placement. You won’t always get what you want, but you will then start thinking about it more clearly.

JODIE second-year student

‘Most social work courses start with university-based learning. The opportunity to try out the theories, skills and methods you have read about and practised in the classroom is an exciting prospect, but it can also be a daunting one. This chapter aims to help you make the most of your placement by being as well prepared as you can be. One of the most important ways of doing this is to take the advice of the students quoted above and plan ahead. We will make some suggestions about how to achieve this as well as providing tips, practical advice, exercises and information about how to ensure that the beginning of your placement is an enjoyable and effective learning experience.

The role of placements in social work training

Placements are at the heart of social work training. On some courses learning in practice is about half of all learning that takes place and must enable students to gain experience in different practice settings.

Most social work students in England are assessed using the Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF) and/or using the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) Standards of Proficiency. Students in other parts of the UK are assessed against their own occupational standards. You can read much more about assessment requirements in Chapter 7, Being assessed, and in the appendices at the end of this book.

Your experience of being on placement and the way in which you prepare for it will therefore vary depending on the stage of training you have reached and the standards and requirements you are expected to meet. You will learn a great deal from your first placement, which you will carry to your second (and in some cases third or fourth) placement. The expectations of those involved in your practice education, the requirements of your university course and the expectations you have of yourself will also increase as you become more knowledgeable, competent and experienced. By the time you complete your final placement, those involved in assessing your practice will be expecting you to show that you can practise in the way that would be expected of a newly qualified social worker.

At all levels, placements are an opportunity to put your academic learning into practice and to find out more about the knowledge, skills and values needed to work safely and effectively with different groups of service users. If you are reading this book as a student thinking about your first placement, the prospect of being a fully qualified social worker may feel a long way off. It is important to remember, however, that the purpose of your learning on placement and at university is all about becoming a skilled and confident professional practitioner. Ensuring that you make the most of each placement by preparing well and getting off to a good start is an essential building block along the road to achieving this goal.

Preparing for placement

Organising the placement

The process of identifying and organising placements is usually the responsibility of social work course providers rather than individual students. The precise way this works will differ from university to university. It will almost certainly depend on the structure of your course, the availability of placements in your area and the way in which responsibility for arranging them is organised between the university and practice agencies. Other considerations will include the stage you have reached in your training and the sorts of formal national requirements outlined above. This can mean that for reasons beyond the control of your university, the amount of choice you have over where your placement takes place is limited. However, if you are given an opportunity to negotiate your placement setting, you should take the advice of Jodie, the student quoted at the beginning of this chapter, and seize it!

This book is all about being an active participant in your placement experience – and, where possible, this should start before your placement begins. Some of the ways in which you may be able to play an active role in the process of identifying a placement include:

• Finding out about the procedure for organising placements. Understanding the time scales and responsibilities involved will help to ensure that you make a useful contribution rather than hindering the process.

• Filling in any forms you are given about your preferences, previous experience and learning needs as fully as possible – this information may be used to match you to a particular placement.

• Talking to your tutor about the sort of placement you feel you need. Staff on social work courses are generally very experienced in assessing the learning needs of students. Your tutor may therefore have a different idea from you about the placement that would suit you...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Brief Contents
• Full Contents
• Exercises
• Figures and tables
• Acknowledgements
• Meet the authors
• Introduction
• 1 Getting started
• 2 Learning for practice
• 3 Using theory and knowledge in practice
• 4 Values and ethics in practice
• 5 Keeping service users central to your learning and practice
• 6 Making the most of supervision
• 7 Being assessed
• 8 Managing stress on placement
• 9 Troubleshooting
• 10 Moving on from your placement
• Appendix
• References
• Index