Practice Placement in Social Work: Innovative Approaches for Effective Teaching and Learning

✍ Scribed by Avril Bellinger (editor); Deirdre Ford (editor)

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Year: 2016
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 237
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Involved in educating social work professionals? Overwhelmed and demoralised by the current climate of cuts to services and over-regulation? This unique book written by practice educators, students and academics offers hope. This collection of innovative approaches to social work placements addresses subjects including sustainability, student-led services, overseas placements, the value of the third-sector, supporting students from minority groups and the visual arts. The international and diverse contributions offer practical guidance and challenge conventional approaches to placement finding, teaching and assessment in field education. Written from a global social work perspective this is essential reading for anyone responsible for ensuring quality placements for future professionals.

✦ Table of Contents

PRACTICE PLACEMENT IN SOCIAL WORK
Contents
Foreword
Notes on contributors
Introduction
1. Student-led services
Introduction
Literature review
Specific projects
Reflections
Making student-led services a reality
2. International placements: learning from a distance
Introduction
Theme 1: Isolation
Theme 2: The changing nature of the relationship
Theme 3: Shared learning and reciprocity
Conclusion
3. The outside looking in: an independent social worker’s experience of practice educator work
Introduction
My social work journey
Working as an independent social worker
Independent social worker practice and social work education
Personal foundations for the practice educator role
Widening the net – valuing practice learning opportunities from all sectors
Supporting innovative practice learning
In conclusion
4. ‘Do you have to be white to pass this course?’ Developing support for black and minority ethnic students in a predominantly white area
Introduction
The context for a support group
Support groups as a safe space
The student response
Conclusion and future practice
Recommendations
5. Men in social work education: building a gendered alliance
Introduction
Being men
Becoming a social worker
Learning with women
Working and studying with women
Conclusion
Recommendations to social work education
6. Hidden in plain sight: use of an arts-based method for critical reflection
Introduction
The case for an additional method
Why use arts-based methods to further critical reflection?
Critical reflection
The method
Using visual autoethnography for evaluation
Evaluation and learning for future practice
The potential of visual imagery for social work education
7. Getting our hands dirty: reconnecting social work education as if the earth matters
Introduction
The earth matters
Professional reconnection
Personal reconnection
Getting down to earth
Conclusion
8. Social media for students in practice
Introduction
Definitions
Background
Social media and social work practice
The British Association of Social Workers’ code of practice for social media
Social media in social work practice education
Professional boundaries
Summary
9. Developing placement capacity in the third sector
Introduction
A student perspective
A placement supervisor perspective
Practice educator perspectives
Conclusion
10. Observations of student practice: what difference does observer qualification make?
Introduction
Context for the study
Practice observation
The pilot study
Findings
Discussion
Conclusion
11. Filling the gap: constructive responses to the erosion of training standards for practice educators
Introduction
Historical context
A commitment to transformative learning
The modules
Delivery
Assessment
Feedback
Analysis
New initiatives
Conclusion
12. The concept of integrity in relation to failing and marginal students
Introduction
Applying the lens of integrity in relation to social work competence and the marginal student
Addressing the issue of failing or marginal students
‘Integrity moves’ within the student journey
The concept of integrity in practice
Conclusion: maintaining integrity in the social work programme
13. Cultivating discretion: social work education in practice and the academy
Introduction
The impact of neoliberalism on social work practice
The impact of neoliberalism on higher education
The impact of neoliberalism on learning to be a professional
A new model for social work education
Practice learning and ownership: recognition and equality in the academy
Index