Maximising the Sustainability and effectiveness of practice learning opportunities in the social work degree

The aim of the study was to consider how to build more sustainable arrangements for practice learning and assessment. Consequently consensus methodology was used through four cumulative stages to:
- Assess the current arrangements of practice learning opportunities in Wales.
- Make recommendations that will increase the responsibility amongst social workers to contribute to the education and training of social work students in the future.
- Agree proposals for a communication strategy to support professional practice learning.
This report is divided into 4 parts: 1) The literature review. 2) The findings assessing current arrangements. 3) The recommendations. 4) Proposals for developing a communication strategy to support professional practice learning.
The key themes derived from the data which respond to the original aims of the study are:
- Regulation and Requirement
- Recruitment and Retention
- Status and Support
- Communication
The first three themes were originally found within the literature review and the fourth theme of communication has been added as a consequence of the analysis of the study’s raw data. These themes can be seen in relation to CPEL, academic credit and potential guidance for Practice Assessors can be seen in Appendix 12.
A key finding of this study is that the sustainability of practice learning opportunities across Wales is tenuous. Findings to support this are summarised below:
- The process across Wales is bordering on being fragile and is still reliant on ‘goodwill’ from practitioners, managers and teams.
- The issue of lack of workload relief is identified as a fundamentally key inhibitor to the role of Practice Assessor.
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- A lack of status attached to the role of Practice Assessor is limiting its attraction to practitioners.
- The level of commitment shown by Practice Assessors and teams is notable despite the difficulties that are apparent within the system.
- The level and type of partnership between Universities and Local Authorities is not sufficiently robust and requires a greater sense of integration and mutual ‘ownership’ in practice.
- The provision and management of the practice learning process is not sufficiently integrated into the strategic processes or priorities within Local Authorities.
Consequently, key agreed recommendations are as follows:
1. CCW to take responsibility for the creation of a register of qualified social workers who act/wish to act as freelance DPA’s.
2. Local Authorities to reinforce the status of this role and function by clearly implementing dedicated time and ‘workload relief’ measures to enable practice assessment to function as a strategic priority.
3. CCW support the development of a’ good practice guide’ in the management and delivery of PLOs to accompany standards.
4. CCW work with LAs to plan the creation of a support/communication structure.