BJSW Advance Access published online on January 19, 2009
British Journal of Social Work, doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcn178
‘My Expectations Remain the Same. The Student Has to Be Competent to Practise’: Practice Assessor Perspectives on the New Social Work Degree Qualification in England
The authors were members of the team responsible for the Evaluation of the Social Work Degree Qualification in England. Jo Moriarty is a Research Fellow in the Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King's College London. Gillian MacIntyre is a Lecturer at the Glasgow School of Social Work, a joint school of the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde. Jill Manthorpe is Professor of Social Work and Director of the Social Care Workforce Research Unit at King's College London. Beth R Crisp is Associate Professor in Social Work at Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. Joan Orme is Professor of Social Work at the Glasgow School of Social Work. Pam Green Lister is the MSW Qualifying Course Director at the Glasgow School of Social Work. Kate Cavanagh was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Applied Social Science at the University of Stirling until her untimely death in November 2008. Martin Stevens is a Research Fellow in the Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King's College London. Shereen Hussein is a Senior Research Fellow in the Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King's College London. Endellion Sharpe is Managing Director of Sharpe Research.
Correspondence to Jo Moriarty, King's College London, Social Care Workforce Research Unit, Strand Campus, London WC2R 2LS. E-mail: jo.moriarty{at}kcl.ac.uk.
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Abstract |
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Research has emphasized the importance of practice learning to social work qualifying education but has tended to feature social work educator and student perspectives more strongly than the views of those responsible for assessing students' practice in the field. This article draws on 195 responses to a postal questionnaire sent at two points in time to practice assessors working with students from nine social work qualifying programmes run in six higher education institutions collected as part of the evaluation of the new social work degree qualification in England. While practice assessors described changes in their role and in the opportunities available to students, they also emphasized continuities, particularly in the skills that they expected students to possess. The key difficulty they identified was the heavy workload resulting from combining their role as practice assessors with their other responsibilities at work. Increases in the number of social work students and changes to the organization of services are likely to create further pressures on practice assessors. Given that these issues are faced by a number of different professions, the article concludes that there is potential for future studies to look at the experiences of practice educators across different professional qualifying programmes.
Keywords: Practice learning, social work education, survey