Placement not suitable

[suchafuss]

I am a social work student with a disability and I'm a blue badge holder. My main problem is mobility related and I discussed this with my placement team. However I have now found out that my placement involves domicillary care, cooking meals, personal care etc. and I just don't think I can manage it. I could manage other roles and have been doing voluntry roles with two organisations, one for almost 3 years. I know that the placements are getting harder for the placement team to find but I think this role is beyond me. Has anyone been in a similar situation or know what my rights are?

[hatgirl]

That doesn't sound like a good social work placement full stop let alone one for a student with a disability.

Is it a first placement or a final placement? Are there opportunities to complete statutory tasks? Will there be any social workers on site, is your practice going to be supervised by a social worker?

[hatgirl]

actually this really annoys me I wish universities would stop taking on more students than they can provide proper placements for.

[suchafuss]

Your are right about it not being a good placement hatgirl but the team are really good are talking students around and justifying their decision making. But when all said and done it's my disability that is the main issue for me. I am fortunate in that my voluntary work is with a YOT and have done loads of different things with them. Its my first placement but I still think its poor and will question the points you made with them.

[x2boys]

i wouldnt have thought personal care and cooking meals was a social worker role?i,m a nurse and the personal care bit is more of a nurse role not sure about meals maybe nursing /ot?

[hatgirl]

Yes I think going at it from both approaches is a good idea.

1. It's potentionally not going to allow you to meet the professional capabilities adequately - you want evidence of what statutory social work type tasks you will be completing and what social work supervision you will be receiving.
   

1. If they can evidence that it will provide the above you need to know what reasonable adjustments they intend to make (if needed) to ensure that you are not being set up to fail in the placement.
   

It sounds to me like your placement is in a day centre or similar. That's sort of ok if your role is going to be care planning, completing assessments and doing some advocacy work, I can see how that would work.

What is not ok is if you are just going to be used as an extra pair of hands to serve meals and assist people to the toilet.

You really need to establish for certain which is the most likely.

[suchafuss]

Agree that if its a care home setting that it could work, but looking on the website suggests its work in the service users home and helping them access services. I also suspect that they have no social workers based there. I am so frustrated as I have worked so hard, all assignments have been firsts, ran a social work society, arranged all my learning opportunities, my CPD file used as an exemplar and double the amount of hours required in my readiness to practice. Thank you so much for your advice at uni everyone seems to think its best to shut up and put up but for me thats not an option

[hatgirl]

The best thing you can do is go along to the pre placement meeting with the organisation and get a clear idea of what tasks you will be asked to complete and how the placement will allow you to meet the professional capabilities. If clear issues are highlighted at that meeting you then have fairly good grounds to be asked to be considered for a different placement. Until you have gone through that stage you probably cant just reject it out right.

[FruitCider]

suchafuss when I was a support worker I mentored many first and second year student social workers. However I worked in MH and did not do personal care, it was housing related support. I used to give student social workers a small case load to let them practice case loading and gain a greater knowledge of inequalities in social care. Are you sure this isn't a similar set up?

[suchafuss]

Not sure Fruitcider I will be checking this at my interview. What you describe sounds as if would be suitable and meet my learning needs so I really hope it is!