July 12, 2014

Our Student Social Worker Programme

A quick interview with Rose Devereux who heads up this programme.

How long have we been placing social work students in PSS?

We have a blue book in the People and Culture room that dates back to 1990, however Nicki Blundell who was in the role prior to me believes PSS have been offering placements since the 1970’s.

Which universities do we work with?

We have a partnership with Liverpool Hope University; part of the arrangement is that every student should have at least 1 placement at PSS during their time on the degree. PSS gives Hope University priority for placements over other universities.

We have also built links with Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool Community College, University of Lancashire (UCLAN), University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, Sheffield Hallam University, University of Sheffield, Edge Hill University and Staffordshire University.

What are the benefits to the students themselves?

Placements create opportunities for learning and practicing social work knowledge and skills, ensuring that students meet the standards for professional conduct in practice.

It is not possible for students to become practitioners through writing and University based assessments alone. Practice requires complex skills, involving assessment, analysis, decision making and professional judgement. These skills can be supported by reading and discussions, but we can only identify what students have really learnt when they are assessed in real life situations.

Placements give students the opportunity to:

• Meet the standards of professional practice. Under the General Social Care Council (GSCC) Code of Practice, students must learn to protect the rights and promote the interests and independence of service users and carers while, as far as possible, protecting them from danger or harm. They must also learn to maintain the trust and confidence of the public and those who use social care services, be accountable for the quality of their work and take responsibility for improving their knowledge and skills. (The GSCC is no longer the governing body for social workers, however, the new governing body The Health and Care Professional Council (HCPC) does not have a set code of practice and therefore Hope University continues to use the GSCC codes of practice as a guide.
• Develop a range of knowledge, skills and practice qualities. Placements enable students to work with individuals, families, carers, groups and communities.
• Work in multi-agency environments.

Placements give students the opportunity to interact with other professionals and learn more about how to work effectively in a multi-agency environment. It’s one thing to hear in university about what health visitors, police officers or community mental health nurses do, but quite another to work together to support a service user. Through their placements, students will get to know what everyday practice is really like and will be able to make informed career decisions. Students often change their career options when they discover new interests and abilities.

What are the benefits of placing a social work student to the service?

I think it’s much better if the answer to this question comes from the service itself so I’ve asked Family Impact to give us their perspective.

The benefits to the service of having a student on placement are that they provide additional help in the group activities and sessions. They provide new ideas for activities and help with daily tasks including phone calls and researching information needed. They spend time networking with other services resulting in referrals being made to other agencies. Students also bring a new perspective on work with children, young people and their families. Students have taken on lead roles in areas of the projects that have been specifically identified as needing support. A further benefit for the service is that students have applied for positions within the team when they have arisen and in some cases been successful in gaining employment.

What should students and employers gain from placements?

Placements are a three-way partnership between the student, the organisation, and the University. Practice assessors and supervisors supervise and mentor students and in doing so they are contributing to their own professional development.

University tutors have on-going relationships with placement providers at PSS and can feed in new learning through placement visits, information sharing and training days. Furthermore, the partnership with Hope has enabled projects such as Impact to write a bid for research in to the work we are doing in Sheffield.

PSS also has the chance to get to know students and consider their potential as future employees. Service users can often benefit from an organisation that provides placements because their student social worker will have smaller caseloads and more time to dedicate to learning new ways of working. Service users’ involvement, is also key to working in partnership, for example young people were included on an interview panel at Sheffield Springs. All potential social work students are interviewed by service users and they play a large part on the degree programme.

How many students do we place each year?

The average student intake prior to me taking on the role was 15 to 20 students per year. I’m proud to say we’ve now doubled that with the number of students being placed from April 2012 to April 2013 being 42.

What months do they start and how long do their placements last?

Students are placed throughout the year depending on the individual University. Placements range from 20 days to 100 days. We also work with students from other disciplines to include nursing, and psychology (not for payment).

I was mostly involved with the prisoners’ children side of the team, which was both fascinating and daunting at the same time. I had never really had any experience with anything prison-related, but I was with the team to learn, so got stuck in as soon as I could. Going from the classroom to the workplace was a nerve-wracking shift, and although I had worked in the past, I had never done anything like this before. As the months went by, I became more confident in working with the service-users and really started to enjoy being able to put my new found knowledge to good use!

Jill Butcher Placement with Family Impact 2013