Following last year’s Practice Educator (PE) masterclass, delivered by Siobhan Maclean, the Teaching Partnership invested in resources for PEs to use to encourage students to become more reflective as Social Workers. The resource toolkits include social work theory cards, reflective practice cards, the practice curriculum and a set of everyday, ordinary postcards that you may pick up on holiday, at an art exhibition or send to family and friends.
Siobhan Maclean suggests the use of everyday, ordinary postcards to encourage students to reflect on their placement journey rather than asking “how are you?” and “what are you feeling about your placement?”. Students choose a relevant postcard to use as a visual aid to describe their thoughts, feelings and experiences, this also provides the PE with discussion prompts to further explore the student’s experiences.
Over the last 12 months we’ve been using this model across the partnership in student induction sessions, weekly supervisions, student support groups and professional development groups in partner universities; students and PEs report finding the model incredibly helpful and enjoyable. The reflections capture the student’s journey while on placement and provide a helpful final record of their experiences with some PEs choosing to include them as evidence in the final report.
Click here to see one student’s placement journey, told through postcard reflections, while on placement with adult services at City of York Council.
