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Post-Qualifying Social Work - Specialist AwardsApproaches to Enabling Work-Based Learning in Social Work

Sarah Williams; Lynne Rutter

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New unit design

Student comments – “How can we hope to enable the learning of

others unless we can manage and enable our own learning?”

“ Workshops plus the book was perfect, workshops without the book would have been hopeless”

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Specialist120 credits at Level HDegree/Graduate Diploma

Advanced180 credits at Level HMasters

Higher Specialist120 credits at Level MPostgraduate Diploma

Advanced180 credits at Level HMasters

Higher Specialist120 credits at Level MPostgraduate Diploma

Advanced180 credits at Level HMasters

Higher Specialist120 credits at Level MPostgraduate Diploma

AwardsAdvanced180 credits at Level HMasters

Specialist120 credits at Level HDegree/Graduate Diploma

Higher Specialist120 credits at Level MPostgraduate Diploma

Advanced180 credits at Level HMasters

Specialist120 credits at Level HDegree/Graduate Diploma

Higher Specialist120 credits at Level MPostgraduate Diploma

Children and Families

Adults

Mental Health

Leadership & Management

Practice Education

Pathways

‘Enabling others’

General Social Care Council post-qualifying framework

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General Social Care Council (GSCC) – new requirements

• All social workers should be actively involved in supporting learning in their workplace – not as an ‘extra’ but as a core part of their professional role

• All Specialist Awards now include a compulsory requirement to include learning on ‘enabling others’

• All Specialist Award candidates must be involved in teaching and assessing a qualifying social work student – including taking some responsibility for assessing their practice competence.

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Concepts of ‘development’ and ‘expertise’:

Fook et al (2000): …creating knowledge from experience in context and transferring it to differing situations. Practitioners start to develop the confidence and capability to know what to do when presented with a new and different situation

• Adams et al (2002): …critical practice that embodies the complexity of a situation rather than simplifies or ignores it – becomes creative practice, ‘critical being’

‘Enabling others’ – for what?

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Concepts of ‘development’ and ‘expertise’ cont’d:

Taylor and White (2006): …allows ‘respectful uncertainty’ - alternative readings; a reflective, analytic, systematic process of judgment that acknowledges emotion and interpretation

Gray and Gibbons (2007): …no answers, only choices in practice… prescriptive frameworks not resolve these problem – practitioners need to become ethically responsible for choices – develop ‘good judgment’ in action

‘Enabling others’ – for what?

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Professional development is complex …

… developing the ability to identify and interpret the holistic but multifaceted nature of situations whilst considering a range of alternative options, in order to deal with the true complexity and uncertainty of practice…

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…but seems to consist of two key aspects

Approaches and processes; transferable skills; professional attributes

More than fixed knowledge, skills, or outcomes

The why, what else, so what…?

CAPABILITY

The who, what, when, how… ?

COMPETENCY and

it is also

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So… what was our Unit aiming to achieve?

To help candidates become practitioners who can ENABLE OTHERS to learn and develop their practice.

Therefore the Unit was designed to develop the skills, knowledge and values needed to;

• Co-ordinate and organise learning• Facilitate learning • Assess achievement / competence / capability

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Aiming for more than competence….

In designing the Unit we wanted to ensure that candidates developed the skills, knowledge and values they needed to enable others to develop not just their competence in practice but also their professional capability.

To achieve this we considered the Unit’s

• Content • Structure & approach• Ethos

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Content

• Introduction at the beginning of the Unit to the concepts of professional capability / competence.

• Strong emphasis on developing knowledge and understanding of critical reflection and reflective learning theories.

• Strong emphasis on developing an understanding of the role of assessment both in maintaining professional standards and in supporting learning and development.

• Strong emphasis on developing the skills & attributes needed to facilitate critical reflection / critical evaluation and analysis and application of ideas to practice both in self and in others.

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• Blend of learning experiences• Strong emphasis on learning through critical

reflection and on gaining experience of enabling the learning / development of others.

• Questioning, inductive stance towards the content and theory – both through workshops and our handbook

• Tailored assessment

Structure & approach

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Ethos

• Candidates were expected to take responsibility for their own learning AND to support the learning of their peers through group work.

• The Unit modelled an approach to learning and was designed to develop both their competence AND capability.

• Candidates were expected / supported to take a critically reflective approach to their practice AND to enable critical reflection in their peers.

• The Unit promoted a lifelong learning approach – the start of a journey not the end.

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• Experiential – working with students and other ‘learners’ in workplace.

• Group – workshops introducing key areas of theory, discussions and exercises to explore concepts and extend understanding by making links to practice.

• Self- managed - reading; reflective exercises and questions making links to practice

• Continuing - through critically reflective practice and collaboration with others – integrating learning and practice

Blend of learning experiences

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Self-managed learning guide

Provides • Guidance for self-managed learning• Suggested activities / guide times for completion• Suggested timetable • Record of work undertaken• Candidates ‘eyes only’ – candidates retain full

responsibility for their own learning

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• Helps candidates develop a more critical approach to their role as a practice educator – develops self-reflection on practice

• Collates, summarises, organises relevant theory for ‘enabling others’ – suggests further reading

• Considers theory holistically - knowledge, skills and values – use ‘knowing, acting and being’ (Barnett and Coate 2005)

• Includes questions and exercises - brings in candidates’ prior and current experiences and facilitates candidates to construct their own understanding of the material

• Encourages application via inductive use of theory – practice requirements first

Course book – ‘Enabling and Assessing Work Based Learning for Social Work’

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Competency – via Record of Competence, a brief written account of how they met the professional body requirements for the Specialist Award

Capability – via critically reflective assignment

Assessment

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Evaluations of the course so far

• Some like it better than others – guess why?

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“How can we hope to enable the learning of others unless we can manage and enable our own learning?”

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“We could say that enabling others to practise more critically and reflectively exposes us all to different ways of representing what we do. So the best type of learning can help all participants to see their processes of reasoning and judgement more realistically and to become more reflexive, analytic and systematic in their activities.”

(Taylor & White 2006, p.)

Desired outcomes…for candidates, their students and ourselves

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Post-Qualifying Social Work - Specialist Awards

Approaches to Enabling Work-Based Learning

Sarah Williams; Lynne Rutter