Laurenza Buglisi specializes in supporting families affected by sexual violence, intergenerational trauma, and family estrangement. She also provides training and consultancy in child safeguarding practices for organizations and social work professionals.
For social work students at university, starting your professional placement with a workplace can feel both exhilarating and terrifying. This might be your first opportunity to put your social work training into practice. The pressure for your placement to meet your every professional need can feel overwhelming- after all, this practical training will impact your future career options, opening or closing doors in the process. What if I told you that regardless of what placement you end up being allocated, there is always a way to find relevancy and learning in every setting? Your attitude counts for more than you think. Read on to learn what you can do to make the most of your social work placement and secure the best possible job opportunities after graduation.
1. Understand your university’s administrative requirements
Successful completion of your social work placement will be linked to whether you meet specific learning objectives as determined by your university. Depending on which country you are studying in, these will be governed by a national social work association or state registration board that ensures all university departments of social work adhere to certain educational standards. This is to make sure that the quality of social work graduates is reliable and consistent as they have all undertaken similar quality education and training. Placement requirements are usually quite strict and include specifications around placement hours, tasks completed, and time spent in formal supervision. You can expect that regardless of the organizational setting, there will be ample paperwork for you to complete during your placement. Attention to detail is key in meeting these requirements and it is advisable that you start your placement with a clear understanding of expectations regarding this.
2. Learn everyone’s role
Social work placements are an opportunity to integrate theory with practice, and as such, you can expect to be surrounded by a team of professionals whose role is to support you during this period. It is important to understand exactly who is responsible for what, as it can sometimes be confusing since each university might use different terms for the same role.
Workplace supervisor
Usually, there is someone within your placement organization who is responsible for supervising your daily activities. This might include introducing you to the rest of the workplace, giving you a tour of the office, providing an induction, and allocating tasks such as managing a client caseload or completing project work.
This person plays an important role in your placement team because they are your first point of contact if you have any questions or concerns. They are typically involved in writing feedback reports and providing updates to your university on your progress. If they are a qualified social worker and have the capacity, they might also provide you with social work supervision, which is a more in-depth type of support that helps you understand how social work theories apply in practice.
Social work supervisor
This supervisor is responsible for guiding reflections on a deeper level; that is, helping you understand how what you’ve learned in the classroom is applicable to the clients you are working with or understanding how your own personal experiences might impact your placement. This supervisor will also report back to the university on your progress and write feedback reports too.
University representative
Finally, you will be allocated someone from the university who acts as the university liaison or representative during your placement. They are responsible for meeting with you on a few occasions throughout your placement to monitor your progress and see if you need further support. This person will provide feedback that informs the decision around whether you have successfully passed or failed the placement. They will be in contact with your other supervisor/s to gauge how things are going and will take the lead if any issues arise during placement.
3. Understand the organizational scope and context
It is important to have a clear understanding of the type of organization you are working with to give your placement context. You want to know if your organization is part of a government department, a private company, or is registered as a not-for-profit organization. Researching the company’s mission statement and understanding where it receives funding from will help you appreciate the wider context within which you are expected to work. It is also helpful to know what target group the organization caters to, such as whether it provides general support to members of the public who reside in a certain area or specialist support for any child under 10 who has experienced sexual abuse. Being able to identify the particular parameters of your own team within this organization will be useful in understanding the type of social work you are doing during this placement. For instance, you should be able to distinguish between area of practice (i.e., mental health, sexual violence, education), modality of intervention (i.e., individual work, groupwork, policy, research), and client group (i.e., children, youth, adults, seniors).
4. Be clear on reporting obligations
While you are not expected to know everything at the beginning of your social work placement (this is part of your university training after all), it can be useful to have a solid understanding of your reporting obligations. If you are unsure, check with your workplace or social work supervisor. There are two types of reporting obligations- those that are within your organization (internal) and those that are applicable outside your organization (external). Your internal reporting requirements will include things such as the organization's policies on record keeping and incident management procedures, which usually include consultation with a supervisor. External reporting requirements refer to legal or ethical obligations to contact people outside the organization because you have concerns that there is a risk of harm to someone or you suspect a serious crime has been committed.
5. Know your own expectations and goals
The best way to approach any social work placement is to go into it with a clear understanding of your own goals and expectations. These can be general, such as wanting to pass the placement as a means of meeting your course requirements, along with broad expectations around feeling valued and safe with your team members. These are examples of reasonable hopes that all social work placement settings should strive to meet. Your expectations might also include specific goals, such as having the opportunity to work with children or take a small caseload of clients to practice your counseling skills before graduation. Clarity on expectations can then assist your articulation of these to your supervisor/s, who can be given the opportunity to explain if these are able to be fulfilled in that particular placement setting. Circumstances where your specific goals are unable to be met do not necessarily mean that your placement will be unsuccessful but it may require an adjustment of expectations. Alternatively, it might mean finding creative ways to achieve these goals, such as undertaking volunteer work as a telephone counselor alongside your studies to gain this experience before graduation.
6. Be open-minded to new experiences
The most successful social work students are those who understand that the possibilities presented during placement are often only limited by your imagination. That is not the same as saying all social work students can access specific learning opportunities at a particular workplace. It means that your attitude is often your most valuable asset. Social work placements are a unique chance for organizational exposure that goes beyond your workplace and extends to a systemic understanding of the pursuit of social justice in a broader context. Seeing your social work placement for what it can be, not necessarily what it is, can help you be open-minded to new learning experiences, no matter what form they take.
7. Engage in networking
Social work students eager to focus on skill development can often overlook exposure to a wide range of professionals during placement. Developing professional relationships with these workers can have many benefits. It can provide an opportunity for informal mentoring and broaden your exposure to different organizations and practice wisdom. It is often said that despite the breadth of social work across different sectors, it is surprising how small the social work scene can feel once you start to recognize colleagues in different work contexts. This is particularly relevant if you choose to specialize in a certain practice area of social work, such as child and family sexual abuse. Establishing and maintaining positive working relationships with colleagues will assist you to build a solid professional reputation where your skillset and judgement is endorsed by others in the field. This also widens the options for possible referees in the future.
8. Prioritize self-care
It is undeniable that while rewarding, social work placements are mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausting. I am yet to meet a social work student who does not feel fatigued in some capacity by the end of placement. This is expected to some extent, given the intense level of concentration and stressful nature of working with vulnerable people that placements demand. Learning tasks requested by your university are also tailored to engage students in critical reflection and skill development that simply take a lot of energy. Engaging in good self-care habits throughout your placement will help protect you from burnout and vicarious trauma. It is important to remember that social work placements are designed to support you to succeed, so reach out to your supervisor/s for help if you are feeling overwhelmed or depleted.
9. Organize your thoughts to consolidate learning
It would be difficult to fully engage in a social work placement if only relying on practice wisdom and lived experience. It is expected that social work students will engage with research, legislation, and policy that is related to their area of practice, modality of intervention and client group. This means that you will be reading a wide range of literature during your placement, with such a high volume of material understandably difficult to retain. Writing concise notes and summaries of different sources will be useful in consolidating the material and integrating it into your social work toolkit for practice as a new graduate. You might like to challenge yourself by creating one-page summaries of everything you read during your placement. This will form a useful handbook of knowledge that you can later refer to and is especially helpful when preparing for interviews for social work positions as a new graduate.
10. Invest in career planning
The most crucial part of your social work placement is understanding the role it plays in future job seeking and professional development. Placements are a wonderful chance to discover your own gaps in learning. By recognizing skills you would like to gain or knowledge you want to develop, you are starting to invest in your career planning. The next step is to identify what additional professional training, specialist postgraduate study, or workplace experience you need to gain in order to fill those gaps. Creating a tailored professional development plan is a useful way of setting tangible goals that will keep you up-to-date with current research and training and ensure you remain competitive for future employment opportunities.
In conclusion, your social work placements are a valuable part of your university training that have the potential to shape your future career. For more online resources and support for social workers and other professionals, check out here.
Read more from Laurenza Buglisi
Laurenza Buglisi, Social Worker & Family Therapist
Laurenza Buglisi is a qualified Social Worker and Family Therapist who specializes in child sexual abuse. She was the founder of Juno’s Circle: Counselling, Training and Consulting, supporting families with complex trauma. Laurenza is committed to ensuring all families are equipped with the necessary tools and resources to parent protectively. As a mother to three young children herself, she understands the challenges of raising children in a digital age with an increased prevalence of child sexual exploitation. Laurenza is passionate about working with organizations and social work professionals to ensure a clearer understanding of compliance with child safe practice standards and reporting obligations.
