Creating Connections between New Graduates and Social Work Students on Placement
Keywords:
Student placement, Coaching and mentoring, Creating Connections, Participatory Action Research (PAR)Abstract
Coaching and mentoring programs are recognised as significant to the learning experience and sense of purpose as a social worker for both students on placement and for new graduate social workers. Both groups have their learning experiences and sense of purpose as social workers enhanced by coaching and mentoring programs.
This paper explores the ongoing endeavour to provide effective learning experiences for students on placement. A research initiative involving coaching and mentoring was trialled in the Student Education Unit of a social work department in a large teaching hospital in metropolitan Sydney. Entitled “Creating Connections,” and conducted by new graduate social workers and social work students on placement, this initiative utilised Participatory Action Research methodology (PAR) to explore the effectiveness of coaching and mentoring programs (Baum, MacDougall, & Smith, 2006). The results revealed its effectiveness for both students and new graduate social workers’ learning experience, proving coaching and mentoring to be an innovative model of supplementary learning for field placements.
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Copyright (c) 2017 Australian and New Zealand Social Work and Welfare Education and Research
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Advances in Social Work & Welfare Education by Australian and New Zealand Social Work and Welfare Education and Research (ANZSWWER) is licensed under CC BY 4.0
