Factors That Impact a Social Worker's Capacity to Supervise a Student

ABSTRACT

With sector constraints and higher education economic imperatives increasingly impacting the provision of social work field education, university programs lack an understanding of the factors that enable or prohibit field educators’ capacity to provide placements. Despite the significance of field education in the curriculum, it remains unclear what the experiences and motivations of field educators are to provide universities with student placements. This research addresses this gap through surveying 101 field educators that attended statewide Victorian field education training. Results indicated that although field educators recognised the benefits of supervising students, workload relief, additional training, and further student placement preparation by the university were emphasised as the primary factors that would enable them to respond positively to placement requests. Payments for placements did not necessarily ameliorate these issues nor guarantee the provision of more placements. The implications of these findings for universities and the field are discussed.

IMPLICATIONS

• It is important for social work field educators to provide voice to the factors that enable or inhibit their capacity to provide supervised student placements and participate in research to highlight the benefits and challenges of their role.

• Workload relief and greater student placement preparation were identified by field educators as the biggest factor that would increase the likelihood they could provide a supervised student placement.

• The impact of payment for placement arrangements requires further examination.

随着部门的限制以及高等教育中的经济动机日益影响社会工作 田野教育的提供，高校的项目不理解哪些因素有助于或有损于田野教育工作者提供实习机会的能力。尽管田野教育在教学科目中举足轻重，但我们并不清楚田野教育工作者的经验和动机将为高校的实习学生提供些什么。本研究调查了101位参加维多利亚州田野培训计划的田野教育工作者，以填补这个认识上的空白。研究结果显示，尽管田野教育者知道辅导学生的好处，但工作减负、额外培训、学校安排的学生实习备课等等，更被视为积极回应实习要求的首要因素。实习费未必就能缓解这个矛盾、就能提供更多实习机会。作者讨论了以上发现对于高校及田野工作的参考价值。

KEYWORDS:

• Social Work
• Field Education
• Placements
• Universities
• Field Educators
• Social Work Students

Acknowledgements

This study was carried out on behalf of the Combined Schools of Social Work (CSSW) in Victoria.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.