Social Work placements in private care homes – Practical Information

The information in this document is also applicable to other placement settings.

Dates of the placement

Insert as applicable

Hours to be worked each week

  • Students would normally work a 7 hour day
  • Students will normally work four days a week in the placement setting
  • Start and finish times can be arranged to suit the work of the care home
  • Students may work some evening or weekend shifts where this would help them to understand the work of the care home and/or to engage in a particular piece of work such as a families meeting or a residents’ outing.
  • Shift-work may be agreed for a placement where the nature of the work makes that a better learning experience for the student.

Dress code

  • The student is expected to be clean and smart during placement hours, without being formally dressed.
  • Social work students do not normally wear a uniform.

Accountability

  • The student is primarily responsible to the link worker for day-to-day work but may be on duty without the link worker.
  • The student is responsible to the Manager through the link worker.
  • The student is always supernumerary.
  • The student is also responsible to the practice teacher[1] for completing placement tasks and for providing evidence of having met the Standards in Social Work Education (SiSWE).

The Learning Team

This student placement involves a number of people working together as a Learning Team – the Link Worker, the Student, the Practice Teacher/Educator and the Tutor. Details of their roles are presented below.

The Role of the Link Worker

  • Liaise with the designated practice teacher prior to and during the practice placement.
  • Identify learning opportunities within the Agency to meet the student’s learning needs in line with the Standards in Social Work Education (SiSWE).
  • Clarify the student’s role in the care home team with the student and the team
  • Prepare the care home team for the student’s arrival.
  • Provide the student with information on agency policy, procedure and practice
  • Negotiate and agree the student’s workload with the practice teacher and Agency Manager.
  • Meet with the student on a weekly basis to offer support/supervision.
  • Meet regularly with the practice teacher to discuss student learning and the progress of work identified in the Practice Learning Agreement.
  • Tackle practical issues and provide appropriate information and advice.
  • Ensure roles, responsibilities, and tasks are clarified and recorded in the student’s Practice Learning Agreement.
  • Where agreed, directly observe the student’s practice.
  • Give feedback on progress to the practice teacher and student – this can be verbal or written and is expected to happen regularly throughout the placement.
  • Contribute to the assessment of the student as agreed with the practice teacher.

The Role of the Practice Teacher /Educator

  • The Practice Teacher is responsible for ensuring that the student has adequate opportunities to meet and evidence the Standards in Social Work Education (SiSWE).
  • The Practice Teacher (PT) is expected to meet the student once a week for supervision for at least 1.5 hours. This would normally happen within the placement site but can be arranged elsewhere.
  • The PT is responsible for ensuring that minutes of each supervision meeting are kept. These may be written by the PT or the student or alternated.
  • There will be at least three direct observations of the student’s work with service users during the placement. The PT will observe the student’s work with service users on at least two occasions. A third observation may be carried out by the link worker, subject to agreement between the PT and the link worker.
  • The PT will arrange at least one ‘tutor’ meeting which will include the link worker and student.
  • The PT would expect to meet the link on at least three occasions during the placement but to keep in more informal touch between those times.
  • The PT reports to the University at the mid point of the placement and at the end.
  • The PT recommends a ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ placement result to the University. The PT will take feedback from the link worker and other colleagues into account when making an assessment of the student’s progress and competence. That feedback does not have to be formal or written.

Role of the Tutor

The tutor is based at the University and is responsible for the academic progress of the student. S/he will visit the placement at least once for a meeting with the student, practice teacher and link worker. Other meetings may be arranged as required. The tutor is always available to the student and other members of the learning team in the event of any query or difficulty.

Tasks to be undertaken by the student

The student must achieve the Standards in Social Work Education (‘the Standards’) and a matrix is available to indicate how the work of a care home might fit into those Standards. In general the student would be expected to:

  • Undertake an induction provided by the agency. This will include any training that is agreed to be necessary for the student’s role.
  • Work to the standards of the agency.
  • Adhere to the policies of the agency.
  • Comply with the normal employment expectations of the agency, as relevant to the student role.
  • Make visits to relevant external agencies whose work is connected to that of the care home. The student will set up these visits in the early weeks of the placement.
  • Personal care – the student may assist with some feeding or toileting if the need arises during the course of their work with the resident. The provision of personal care is not in the Standards required of the placement and so they would not be engaged in this kind of work routinely. Students may, however, undertake Moving and Handling training to assist them in working safely with the service users.
  • Individual work – the student is expected to work on a one-to-one basis with some residents and life story work would often be part of that engagement.
  • Groupwork – the student would be expected to set up and run some therapeutic groups with the residents/service users, such as reminiscence therapy.
  • Assessment and Review – the student would be expected to observe (initially) and participate (as the placement progresses) in assessments and reviews of residents’ needs and progress.
  • Work with families – the student would engage with the family where there was an identified need for support, clarification or assistance with some aspect of the resident’s care.
  • The practice teacher may allocate some external work to the student and this will be arranged in consultation with the link worker.

Money

There is a fee for the placement and this comes through the University. Arrangements vary across Scotland and across placement projects. That fee allows for the employment of a Practice Teacher/Educator where an in-house one is not available.

Disclosure

Social Work students are registered as such with the Scottish Social Services Council and that has entailed an Enhanced Disclosure. Some agencies will also require their own disclosure.

Practice Learning Agreement

A Practice Learning Agreement (PLA) will be written up and agreed between the student, link worker, practice teacher and tutor in the first few weeks of the placement. It will include cover of the following areas:

  • Clarify reporting lines/ who is the student to contact in the event of illness or other problem
  • Health and Safety arrangements, including lone working policy
  • Complaints/grievance procedures
  • Rules on confidentiality and whistle-blowing

The PLA should be revisited by the student, link worker and practice teacher every few weeks to ensure that the work opportunities are available as anticipated and that the student has the maximum opportunity to meet the Standards.

Insurance

It is expected that the student will be covered by the insurance of the care home or agency in relation to any accident which might occur in the course of their work in the care home, or with care home residents or agency service users.

Advantages to the Care Home or Agency

There is usually a small monetary reward for taking a social work student but the benefits to the care home or agency are more qualitative. A social work student is a mature and independent worker who will be able to add value to the work of the team. The student is expected to work directly with service users but also to undertake some organisational tasks, such a researching a new resource or evaluating a particular activity or service provision.

Because the student is supernumerary, s/he will be able to engage in creative work with the service users. Care Homes find that this provides solid evidence to the Care Commission of their provision of enhanced activities for residents.

Care Homes have also found that the work undertaken by the student has been carried on, after the placement, within the team and has led to improved service delivery. Students have established reminiscence groups, life story work, residents’ groups, story-boards and photo-collages. They have provided research evidence to support Care Homes introducing sensory rooms and reminiscence lounges. All of this work helps the Care Homes to demonstrate their meeting of the Care Commission expectations.


A Guide to social work placements in care homes: TemplatebyMoira Dunworthis licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.1

[1] The terms Practice Teacher, Practice Educator and Practice Assessor are used interchangeably across the UK. Use of these terms vary across Scotland. They all refer to the same role.