1. Year 1’s preparation for PL1

2. Your First Placement.... Don’t Panic!

3. What to expect from Placement You’re not expected to know everything Opportunity to communicate with service users if you haven’t had much experience Opportunity to observe service and see how they are run – what they do for service users and what is available for service users If you feel you are gaining more from a support workers point of view, don’t worry – you are observing support workers after all!

4. Tips to look out for Read the Practice Learning Handbook throughout the 2 weeks you are on placement so you know what is expected of you and what you will be evaluated on Take as many opportunities that you can – if you think it would be good to observe something just ask if you can! If you feel you’re not getting a lot out of placement, speak to your mentor and tutor and see what solutions you can all come up with together Look at multi agency work – what other services does your placement interact with? How do they receive referrals and what is the process for assessment?

5. Knowledge Base Policies and Procedures Legislation- what legislation is used on placement? (this will help with 2 nd year law module) How does your placement assess the needs of the service users? What risk assessments do they use and how are they set out? What are the care plans like? What role does social work have with the service?

6. Skills Base Communication skills – what skills in particular are you using? What skills do you see others presenting when working with service users? What skills are you not confident in?

7. Value Base Try and identify what values the service are promoting Also be critical if they are not promoting some In what ways are the service tackling discrimination? Have you came across any ethical dilemmas?

8. Reflective Diary You won’t think you have much to reflect on, but you don’t realise how important this is until you get to third year! Practice makes perfect, start now! Reflect on knowledge used, skills you have identified and developed, values you are promoting Also reflect on why you did things in certain ways, for example....

9. Examples from reflective diaries “When I met the service users I said hello and shook their hand, introduced myself and ask them how they were. I did this because I wanted to promote unconditional positive regard, and I didn’t want to treat them any differently to anyone else, just because they couldn’t understand what I was saying’’

10. “When listening to what the service user was telling me, I crossed my legs and put my hands together and nodded as they were telling the support worker about their troubles with their family. I did this to highlight to them that I was interested in what they were saying, that I showed empathy towards them and that I was paying attention and listening.”

11. “When the service user took a turn, started crying and running around the room, I stood up from the seat and moved over the door because I didn’t want the service user to hurt me or anyone else, and I wanted to make it easier for the support workers to get to the service user to calm them down and make sure they were ok.”

12. What I learned from PL1 I learned specific things from the service and the type of service users who use it, how they are supported and why in this way I learned about the policies and procedures used in the service I met a social worker and gained information on the referral process for them By asking and being confident, I learned more! I asked if I could meet a social worker and my mentor arranged this for me and I got to spend 2 hours with a SW at their office – this helped me link theory to practice from SW point of view

13. If I could go back... What I would do differently..... Pay more attention to my reflective diary – try and think about why you are doing something, I promise this will help you in the long run!! Take control of my learning more and be more assertive – this would have helped me gain more from placement by focusing on what I wanted to get from placement (I met SW on one of my last days – it would have helped me if I had asked to meet them earlier) Ask more questions – I was shy going into a service who all knew each other and got on well, and wasn’t confident in asking things (this is why we go on placement to find out new things so the workers expect questions)

14. Remember.... This is observational, so if you feel you’re sitting around and getting tired, it’s completely normal You’re not expected to act as a support worker, but to get experience from the service and try and identify what the role of the social worker would be within this situation It’s an opportunity to meet service users and practice your skills in communicating with them

15. Good Luck!! You will all do great

16. Any Questions?