A Task Based Approach to the Assessment of Social Work Students' Practice

Summary An assessment framework based on nine course objectives is described.Each course objective has related placement objectives whichbecome increasingly demanding as the course progresses. Studentson placement are required to produce written tasks to show howthey have applied their understanding of each placement objectivein their practical work. It is suggested that this framework improves the comparabilityof placements and the availability of evidence for pass/faildecisions. The framework provides a syllabus for learning oneach placement.     

Making Judgements about parenting: The Example of Freeing for Adoption

Correspondence to Malcolm Hill, Senior Lecturer in Social work, University of Glasgow Department of Socail Administration and Soical work, Lilybank House, Bute Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RT. Summary Social workers frequently are involved in assessments aboutparenting. Thes issues are posed in a particularly Sharp formjudgements need to be made which may transfer parental rightsand reponsiblities permanently, as in cases of freeing for adoption.This article draws on a wider evaluation of freeing to identifythe key dimensions of parent child relations which influencedsocial work and work court decisions. In the majority of cases, there were requests to dispense withbirth parents' agreement to adoption. The principal corcumstanceswhich seen to warrant this involved inital neglect and/or poorbonding following by failure to respond to social work helpafter childern were in care. In most instances, the Courts endorsedthe local authorities position and granted freeing order. However,serveral judgments were in parents' favour. This was relatedsometimes to different perspectives on the relationship betweenfamily circumstances and the precise legal grounds for freeing.Also the lengthy precedures involved menat that in a few instancesthe parents had apperaed to imporve thier situation and so strengthenedthe legal case against freeing.     

MAXIMUM POSSIBLE ERROR IN GUTTMAN SCALES

This article suggests corrected formulas for the amount of possibleerror in a Guttman Scale of dichotomous items. The effect ofthe formulas on the evaluation of Guttman scales is shown bycomparing coefficients reported in previously published articleswith coefficients recomputed according to the new formulas.