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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 are looking to form a number of Communities of Practice where Practice Educators, and those with an interest in practice education, regularly meet up and share best practice, discuss the role and create a supportive community to help enable Practice Education to flourish in the region. To support this, online PE Practice Toolkits and forums will be developed for Practice Educators to collaborate and develop their practice.
Interested? Find out more about the Communities of Practice or email Mark.Axon@coventry.gov.uk to get involved.
Keele Social Work department has recently moved to the school of Primary, Community and Social Care.
We are delighted with this move because our research within this department delivers high-quality multidisciplinary research designed to improve the content, delivery and configuration of health and social care services for the benefit of patients and service users with musculoskeletal conditions, mental health problems, cardiovascular disease and other long-term conditions.
To this end, our students in Children and Families/Adults modules across the MA/BA have had direct teaching experiences with Pediatricians, Approved Mental Health Practitioners, members of the law school and service users with a range of life and social care experiences.
Head of School, Professor Christian Mallen says
“I am delighted that social work is moving to be part of the new School of Primary, Community and Social Care. This move will unite our excellence in social work education with our world leading primary care research, providing a unique environment that will allow us to graduate outstanding practitioners and provide the evidence-base needed in the rapidly changing health and social care arena."
We have been busy inducting new students alongside introducing new staff. Above is a photograph of staff introducing ‘Whole Brain Learning’ to students during induction, a fabulous metaphor and theory for students to identify what activities they like or don’t (usually maths is a popular dislike for social work learners!).
Whole brain learning teaches us how sometimes we can avoid certain types of learning or activities because we have preferences in how the brain processes information. The idea behind this theory is to use the less preferred parts of the brain to become more ‘whole brain’ thinkers and learners.
Dr Karen Roscoe, Lecturer in Social Work and BA Course Director, Keele 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.
The West Midlands Teaching Partnership have funded ten student units across the region, to provide opportunities for social work students to develop and grow. The Shropshire Adults Student Hub (SASH) is one of these units.
"We are MA Social Work students from both University of Wolverhampton and Birmingham City University and for our last 100-day placement been allocated a new exciting opportunity of being put together in Shropshire Adults Student Hub which is a new project for Shropshire Council.
Being in the Hub has been an excellent opportunity for us as students, not only sat together and able to learn new skills together but to be sat with our practice educator for full support whilst on placement. We have been welcomed into the team and feel that we have been fully supported since we have started. We have access to all departments within adult social care and the ability to shadow different qualified social workers to gain a better understanding of the local authority and their social work processes. We have been lucky enough to draw knowledge from a wide range of professionals who have been kind and willing to share their knowledge and skills with us.
We have been booked onto relevant training that we all require depending on our learning needs which will enable us to develop into the social workers we wish to become once we are all qualified. All of us have discussed with each other our worries and concerns before we started here however being in the Hub has overcome any anxieties we had as students starting their final 100-day placement. We have access to many social work books in the department which will be extremely helpful to us to gain further knowledge and to also share knowledge between us in the Hub. It has been enlightening to share stories and experiences with students from different universities and we hope that we can contribute to the further development of the Hub so future students can also benefit from this like we have."
Gerald Sapayi (Birmingham City University), Samuel Macombe (Birmingham City University) and Kath Tudor (Shropshire Council).
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 October saw two successful practice education conferences take place in Worcestershire and Birmingham. These conferences offer opportunities for practice educators to look at best practice and overcoming challenges. Leadership in practice and reflective supervision were key topics discussed recently, with attendees rating their experience highly.
A further four PE conferences have been arranged across the region:
- 20 November 2019 - Coventry & Warwickshire PE Conference
- 3 December 2019 - Black Country PE Conference
- 16 January 2020 - Shropshire PE Conference
- 24 March 2020 - Cheshire PE Conference
If you are interested in attending these conferences, please view our Eventbrite page or contact us directly. Please note that tickets are limited and available by partner.
Did you know?
From Monday 2 December 2019, Social Work England replaces HCPC as the regulatory body for social workers.
Social Work England are currently holding a number of information sessions whilst the transfer takes place. The Teaching Partnership are also arranging sessions to support social workers across our region understand the changes and what it means to you.
Find out more about the transition or contact Jess McEwen, regional engagement lead for Social Work England, for further details. Information sessions will be announced shortly.
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In October, Sarah Redmond and I attended an international conference in Lithuania focusing on ‘Social Work with a Family’ organised by Professors at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania.
Sarah had met the organisers at an ERASMUS event last year and we were invited to this conference to share knowledge from practice and research in the UK. I delivered a workshop focused on supporting children who have experienced trauma, and Sarah delivered a keynote presentation on Retention in Child Protection Social Work. There were representatives from the UK, Lithuania, Poland, Finland, Slovakia, USA, Canada there, all sharing and learning together.
The enormity of travelling abroad to talk about social work and learn from international colleagues was not lost on us, and we were honoured to take part in such discussions around working with children and families. Lithuania is a beautiful country steeped in history and morality. The people we met know what it means to work with little or no resources, to build teams and organisations that want to enable change and empower vulnerable people whilst fighting for statutory roles and funding to fulfil them.
Social work there focuses on support and has no legal role in child protection: support is delivered by social workers in the Municipality Services or Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) and we heard research that found many NGOs are running on less than €1 per day per child. Lithuania has also experienced huge ideological changes within our lifetime which undoubtedly fuels a passion for social justice and systemic solution-focused practice that was exciting to see and hear – reminding us both of our own reasons for entering the social work profession.
Regardless of the comparisons and the differences, the entire experience was made rich through listening to (and taking part in) international conversations about the role of social workers across the represented countries: The ways in which we can uphold Human Rights and the UNCRC; how we inform government as a profession and maximise the resources that we have; how we care for people – including social work staff within our organisations. Those similarities were far deeper and richer than any operational differences between us. The over-arching message we all own is that people matter, injustice exists, and social work is a vocation striving to address and overcome challenge and enable change.
Carolyn Gair and Sarah Richmond, Lecturers in Social Work, Staffordshire University
Two forensic psychologists at University of Birmingham are currently doing some research about the accuracy of memory evidence from children in the Criminal Justice System.
Catrin Williams, a doctoral student, is conducting focus groups with professionals who work (or have worked) with child witnesses or victims (e.g. police officers, social workers, ISVAs, lawyers).
The aim is to better understand opinions and perceptions about the reliability of child memory, as well as any current procedures for collecting memory evidence from children and assessing accuracy. Catrin hopes to recruit a group of social workers for a focus group at University of Birmingham. These groups are not expected to last longer than an hour.
In return, the team are offering a seminar for a department or students in this area or another area of forensic psychology that is of interest.
Please contact Melissa Colloff for further details.
The PE & CPD workstream have recently produced a brochure detailing all of the CPD courses and learning opportunities for 2019-2020. This was created in collaboration with our HEI partners. We encourage all practitioners to take a look at what is on offer.
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