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Welcome to the West Midlands Social Work Teaching Partnership Newsletter.
In this newsletter, we will keep you informed on updates, developments, events, masterclasses, best practice and research, within the West Midlands Social Work Teaching Partnership.
In this edition:
The Teaching Partnership have recently launched a best practice guide for admissions within social work. This guide provides clear guidance on selecting students onto social work programmes, designed to support higher education institutions to improve their admissions process, as part of a key aim of the Partnership.
Lucy Cairns, CSW on the Admissions Workstream, worked closely with workstream leads and partners to create the guide.
"The guide builds upon current admissions practices and sets out the necessary requirements for the further enhancement of admissions and selection processes. The guide lays a benchmark for good practice that can be built upon in the future."
The guide explores key principles in selecting social work students; academic suitability; and modes of assessment. Sample screening tools, self-declaration templates, selection tools and examples of feedback forms are included for use by admissions.
The guide is available online and in print.
 The placements workstream facilitated discussions regarding placements best practice in Shrewsbury this month. Workstream leads, Donna Chapman (Shropshire Council) and Rachel Hek (University of Birmingham) worked with Consultant Social Worker Maria Day (West Midlands Teaching Partnership) to arrange a full day workshop, inviting practitioners, placement co-ordinators, HEIs and employers to discuss placements.
The workshops looked at topics such as placement application forms, processes and student expectations, in addition to discussing shadowing, integrated placements, QPAL and marginal/failing students.
The discussions will culminate in a best practice guide for placements, which will be created to strengthen placement processes across the Teaching Partnership. Please check our website for further news.
We are delighted that following a visit from the HCPC last week, we are moving ahead with the Integrated Degree Apprenticeship Programme at Staffordshire University. We are looking forward to welcoming new apprentices onto the programme from January 2020 and we are now embarking on the exciting process of recruitment! The visit from the HCPC highlighted several areas that needed expansion and clarification and we are working through those conditions and recommendations as I write this.
The HCPC commended our team on the consultation and inclusion of people with lived experience of services. Becky ran several focus groups where service users were consulted on the shape of the programme alongside the identification of appropriate assessment methods to ensure that our apprentices remain person-centred throughout the course. In feedback from one of our service user group following the event we were described as a “formidable team” and we quite liked that!
We were also commended on the team-led approach that we took in developing the apprenticeship programme and we were absolutely thrilled that this had been recognised. Team work totally underpinned the way in which we approached the apprenticeship from the start and also the way we envisage the course as a whole. Carolyn and I myself ran several of events with our local partners to ensure clarity across the employers, the university and the potential apprentices. Current students and newly qualified social workers were invited to share their views via a Padlet and a Delphi questionnaire. Finally, the team offered two “Open Days” at the University to provide information to anyone who may be interested in applying for the apprenticeship and we were excited (and slightly overawed) to welcome over 200 potential candidates.
The philosophy underpinning the enterprise is to work in partnership with each apprentice, employer and member of the academic team to enhance the knowledge, skills and experience already held by each individual. We, as a team, started this process (way back!) as a demonstration of our commitment to local workforce development. All three of us have recently worked in the locality (some of us still do) and recognise the importance of encouraging social care practitioners to use their existing skills as a building block to move into social work as a career. These apprentices will form part of the future social work workforce both locally and nationally and we are so proud to be part of their pathway.
Sarah Redmond, Carolyn Gair & Becky Ford, Lecturers at Staffordshire University
The West Midlands Teaching Partnership has funded a number of masterclasses to share knowledge and learning. They provide an excellent opportunity for social work professionals to continue professional development. Book your place via our EventBrite page.
To discover further events, please visit our website.
Social work is a vocation of possibilities, well at least I believe so, and it has afforded me a range of possible career options and avenues in which to work. It is no small surprise then when I heard University of Wolverhampton’s (UoW) mission statement which centres on ‘opportunity’, ‘innovation’ and ‘enterprise’; I knew I would want to participate in such an organisation. One of the ways the university executes this statement is through a strong commitment to providing social work courses which prepare students for practice within today’s multifarious and evolving communities.
As a new lecturer within the Social Work department at UoW (Faculty for Education, Health and Well-Being), I have experienced first-hand the passion and enthusiasm of colleagues dedicated to sharing knowledge and facilitating learning with social work students.
No two days are alike; each day holds a plethora of opportunities to draw on the vast array of social work knowledge, skills, theories and all important values and ethical considerations which underpin and make social work invaluable for today’s society. Let’s have a look at one of those days...
Read on....
Sandra Wilkinson, Lecturer in Social Work, University of Wolverhampton
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