Practice Learning

What is Practice Learning?
Social work education is now an honours degree qualification, with a clear emphasis on learning for and in practice. As part of their programme of study, students must undertake a total of 200 days on placements in social care settings. Placements can be in a range of settings for example residential, day care, and community and duty teams. Over the 200 days students must work directly with at least two different service user groups.

What does the Children's Workforce section do?
We work with the University of the West of England (UWE) and the University of Bristol to provide quality practice learning opportunities (placements) for social work students. We find and support placements in children’s social care settings in CYPS, other statutory providers and the private, voluntary and independent sector. We also provide training and support for social care practitioners to act as Practice Educators.

What do Practice Educators do?
Practice Educators supervise, support and assess students while on placement. The GSCC National Occupational Standards provide the framework for assessing a student’s practice.

How do I become a Practice Educator?
You need to attend a Managing Practice Learning (MPL) course. You do not currently need to be a qualified social worker to become a Practice Educator. However, from October 2013, all Practice Educators will need to be registered social workers with at least two years experience.
If your setting does not have direct contact with service users you may still be able to offer a placement. However, it is important for students to experience direct work so the placement will probably need to be split with another team.
If you are unsure about being a Practice Educator you may like to consider allowing a student to ‘shadow’ you for two days. Some students must complete this prior to starting their first placement in order to meet GSCC requirements.

Contact us
If you are a CYPS employee and have any questions about practice learning or being a Practice Educator, please contact one of the Learning & Development Coordinators;
Simon Pilgrim
Tel: 0117 35 32526
Email: simon.pilgrim@bristol.gov.uk

Rachel Hayhow
Tel: 0117 35 32524
Email: rachel.hayhow@bristol.gov.uk

If you are an HSC Employee please contact
Julie Phillips
Tel: 0117 35 32513
Email: julie.phillips@bristol.gov.uk