Focusing on professional growth: the experiences of external social work supervisors in field education
Conference Contribution ResearchOnline@JCUAbstract
Social work field education relies on experienced social work practitioners supervising student in human service organisations. Current work contexts and increasing number of students mean that providing placement opportunities for social work students with social work qualified supervisors on site is becoming more difficult. Literature points to limitations, opportunities and important components of placement with external supervision. This paper presents a subset of data from a larger PhD research which examined the experiences of all the key stakeholders involved in social work placements with external supervision. This presentation seeks to illuminate the specific views, concerns, interests and strategies shared by the people who identified as external supervisors, and thus provide the social work supervision to students who undertake their field education in agencies where there is no qualified social work on site able to provide the required social work supervision to them. Participants highlighted the challenges and opportunities posed by external supervision. They discussed formal supervision, where they took on educational roles, and focused on promoting student's professional growth within the profession developing a framework for practice and the social work component to the placement. External supervisors foregrounded relationship building and role clarification as important prerequisites of working supervision arrangements.
Journal
N/A
Publication Name
Australian Association of Social Work and Welfare Education Symposium
Volume
N/A
ISBN/ISSN
N/A
Edition
N/A
Issue
N/A
Pages Count
2
Location
Perth, WA, Australia
Publisher
Australian and New Zealand Social Work and Welfare Education and Research
Publisher Url
N/A
Publisher Location
N/A
Publish Date
N/A
Url
N/A
Date
N/A
EISSN
N/A
DOI
N/A