The simulated family as an aid to learning family group treatment.

Role-playing by students as "family members" and "therapist" in a simulated family situation provides a stimulating learning experience for the participants and the student audience.     

Needs and resources in practice learning: Findings from the Welsh placement survey

A comprehensive survey of practice teaching in Wales, financed by CCETSW, was able to gather information about the need for practice teaching as perceived by course centres and the provision made by agencies. This shows deficiencies in the supply of certain kinds of placements, wide variations in agency provision, and a very uneven pattern of placement support, ranging from a relatively coherent management-led strategy in some agencies to an unsystematic and ‘ad hoc’ approach in others. Some of the problems are seen to arise from the way placement provision is planned and managed, and alternative approaches are identified.     

Reflective practice and learning from mistakes in social work student placement

ABSTRACT

Student placement is a fundamental component of social work education and an important space where to build critically self-reflective practitioners. Students learn from their reflection on their experience and their mistakes are a powerful opportunity to go behind the surface of events and understand the essence of the profession. This article will present some results from the analysis carried out on the reflective writing of a group of social work students who describe and reflect on the most significant mistakes they made in their field practice using a reflective framework developed for errors and failures. The main results of this experience are illustrated with special focus on the impact and on the emotions, the relationships with service users and the assessment of the cases. Students are often so concentrated on looking at their responsibility that they become almost blind to the systems and interactions that contribute to the negative outcomes of their actions. Social work education programs should emphasize the importance of structured reflective habits and promote the culture of responsibility instead of the ‘blame culture’, that is probably the strongest obstacle to learning from mistakes and preventing their repetition in the future.     

Student isolation: the experience of distance on an international field placement

In an era of global awareness of the impact of social, political and environmental impact, the international field placement has become a feature of many social work programmes throughout Australia. A theoretical framework of international social work principles allows for a guiding platform for teaching and learning; however, the experience of the social work student is often one of cultural isolation and emotional vulnerabilities. Whilst cross-cultural learning is a core practice goal of the placement, the ability to engage with this learning is affected by the impact of distance on the student. In turn, the university responsibility for the student is heightened by the distance involved, creating an increased sense of risk for both the student and the social work educator. This article draws on a mixed-methods study, with data sourced from both questionnaires and in-depth interviews with university field education staff, former social work students, and field educators. Five lenses of distance are explored in the aim of increasing understanding of the student experience: geographical distance, cultural distance, emotional distance, pedagogical distance and technological distance. In doing so, the social work educators’ ability to monitor and support remote students is enhanced, and the capacity for the student to engage in a positive teaching and learning environment is increased.     

Student Loan Decision Making: Experience as an Anchor

Journal of Family and Economic Issues - The purpose of study is to examine the association between one's past borrowing experience and borrowing decisions in a hypothetical survey scenario. A...     

Metaphors for mental distress as an aid to empathy: looking through The Bell Jar

This paper makes a case for the value of using metaphors when attempting to describe and understand extreme mental states. Examples of metaphors are given from practice, literature, myth and the visual arts and, in particular, a close reading of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar (1986). Commentary on and criticism of The Bell Jar are cited that highlight the value of this work as an aid to insight into how those in mental distress might feel. The nature and importance of accurate empathy is discussed, as is the difficulty of getting the balance right in empathic responses. Case studies linking theory and practice are cited. The hopes, ambivalence and displacement of the person seeking help are discussed, as are different ways of attempting to provide help. The paper concludes by emphasising the multi-faceted presentations of self by both caring professional and service user and the importance of recognising the subtleties of these in the context of the would-be therapeutic relationship.     

Student involvement in the UK sex industry: motivations and experiences

The Student Sex Work Project was set up in 2012 in the United Kingdom (UK) to locate students who are involved in the sex industry, to discover their motivations and needs, and in doing so provide an evidence base to consider the development of policy and practice within Higher Education. As part of this initiative, a large survey was undertaken comprising students from throughout the UK. Reporting on the findings from this survey, the article sheds some light on what occupations students take up in the sex industry, what motivates their participation and how they experience the work. The study also offers a much‐needed empirical input to the ongoing academic debates on the nature of sex work. The results suggest that there can be little doubt of a student presence within the sex industry in the UK. The motivations and experiences of student sex workers cover elements of agency and choice as well as of force and exploitation and it is suggested that student sex work is best understood from a polymorphous framework which leaves room for a wide variety of experiences and challenges.     

South to south learning experiences: Popular housing problems in Nigeria and India

Slums exist in every known city of the world. Their problems are basically that of urban poverty and deprivation. The management of slums and governmental attitudes have varied from one country to another. Generally in most it has been one of intolerance and denial of utilities. Governments in fact pretend they do not exist. India is one country that has lived with slums and will continue to do so. It has shaped policies to recognise their usefulness and provide them with amenities, however minimal. What lessons can we learn in Nigeria from the India experience? The paper highlights the universality of slums and spontaneous settlements in most Third World Cities. It goes on to examine the Nigerian situation with a special focus on Lagos, the present Federal Capital. This is followed by an appraisal of the Indian housing situation. The Slum Upgrading Projects of New Delhi and other Indian cities are also examined in the context of the agencies involved. Finally conclusions and recommendations are made in an attempt to draw parallells and for us in Nigeria to selectively learn from the experience of another major Third World nation.     

Legitimating the Philippines as a language learning space: Transnational Korean youth's experiences and evaluations

This paper examines how a peripheral English‐speaking country is constructed as a legitimate language learning space in the global English language teaching (ELT) industry by investigating South Koreans’ recent engagement in Philippine English education. It focuses on a short‐term English study abroad program, in which the Philippines serves as a transit place prior to students’ moving to a Western English‐speaking country. Drawing data from ethnographic research on South Korean youth studying English abroad, the article analyzes why Korean students seek Philippine English education in spite of their apparent pursuit of authentic English, and how they evaluate their learning experience in the Philippines. This paper finds that the Philippines holds a niche market in the global ELT industry by separating a space for English learning from other public and everyday spaces of English use and offering pedagogically intensive but emotionally supportive environments to English learners.     

Putting youth development into practice: learning from an innovative fellowship program

Professionals who work with youth can have a tremendous impact on the development and life trajectory of these young people. This article reports on an effort to provide support and professional development for those who work with youth during nonschool hours in a youth development fellowship program. Combining intensive residency workshops and a six-month coaching experience, the fellowship was designed to teach participants how to integrate youth resilience and youth development perspectives into their work. The evaluation collected data from the fellows and their coaches during the course of the program. The study offers insights into the types of benefits achieved through this type of focused intervention with youth workers, as well as the challenges of conducting such an effort.     

Travelling hopefully: Anti-racist practice and practice learning opportunities

This article has been written in response to the current developments in social work education which seek to make anti-racist practice a central requirement of social work training and to make it into a central component of good social work practice. In the present context in which social work is undertaken this will not be an easy goal to achieve without considerable commitment and attention to the detailed content and process of social work and the learning opportunities it offers.

The article focuses on how the teaching of anti-racism on social work courses is then followed through in placement experience and highlights the difficulties that can occur. It describes part of an on-going development and monitoring process initiated with college and practice based teachers at Bath University which is seeking to improve practice at a local level.

It includes a questionnaire sent to practice teachers and students, a practice teaching workshop and the development of a monitoring system for use in future placements. The research attempts to understand better what level of anti-racist practice can be expected of students in short placements and how this might be assessed. It also looks at the issues which arise for practice teachers in their agencies, the importance of management commitment in developing new forms of practice, and the support that is needed for individuals. It concludes with a tentative attempt to put forward a model for developing and assessing anti-racist practice in a placement.     

Child maltreatment and criminal convictions in youth: The role of gender,ethnicity and placement experiences in an Australian population

A number of previous studies have shown that out-of-home care (OHC) placement experiences can influence the pathway from maltreatment to offending, and that these pathways may differ depending on gender and ethnic backgrounds. Even though Australian welfare and justice systems are unique in terms of the over-representation of Indigenous (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) young people, there have been few Australian longitudinal studies that explore the role of placement experiences in examinations of the maltreatment-offending association. The present study uses linked child protection and youth justice data for 17,671 young people and aims to provide insight into the way ethnicity, as well as gender, moderates the association between maltreatment, placement in OHC and youth convictions. The data were analyzed using logistic regression and the findings varied systematically depending on the type of conviction examined. There was some strong evidence that gender, ethnicity and placement factors moderated the relationship between maltreatment and convictions in general, and for violent convictions more specifically. Interaction effects revealed that placement experiences were more consequential for female than for male youth, but less consequential for Indigenous than for non-Indigenous youth. A one-size-fits-all approach to understanding, treating and preventing the consequences of child maltreatment could not be considered the most appropriate best practice given the gender- and ethnic-specific pathways found in this study.     

Emotionalized learning experiences: Tapping into the affective domain

The experimental study was undertaken to examine the effect of emotionalized learning experiences on the academic achievement of students at Preston University. The major objectives of the study were to identify the effect of teaching methods on students’ academic achievement and to evaluate the relationship between affective learning conditions and students’ academic achievement. Based on four intact semesters, the population of the study comprised 140 students from the Bachelors of Business Administration Program. The whole population was considered as the sample. The control group (28 students) was taught through the interactive lecture method, whereas, the experimental group 1 (35 students), experimental group 2 (46 students) and experimental group 3 (31 students) were taught through the activity method, reflective learning method and cooperative learning method respectively. Results indicated a significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores obtained in the achievement test as a result of the effect of teaching methods used for offering the emotionalized learning experiences. There was also a significant relationship between affective leaning conditions and students’ academic achievement. Furthermore, it was found that students’ academic achievement in the affective domain was highest with regard to workshops 1, 2 and 3. It was concluded that the emotionalized learning experiences offered to the students via the four teaching methods helped students in enhancing their knowledge, changing their attitudes and developing their skills with regard to living a happy, healthy and meaningful life. However, the reflective learning method proved to be the most suitable followed by the interactive lecture method, the cooperative learning method and the activity method.