Student Placement advice

india

I am trying to secure my own social work placement for September because I need one closer to my home due to childcare and being a single parent.

My university is an hour away from my house and most the place ments they have are up to an hour and a half away. They don't have anything in my area and I don't drive.

My daughter's nursery opens at 8.00 and I would have to start at 9.00. If I started later, I'd finish later and then would have problems collecting her and my son. I can't find anyone to collect them for me.

Does anyone have any advice of how to find my own placement or templates of a sample letter to send to local authorities?

Thanks in advance.

MrsManda

Have you spoken to your university about it? Student placements are usually not just a case of spending sometime in a place of work. You need to know what your university requires of a placement (hours, duties, resources available, can you work with children or adults, are schools ok or does it have to be a direct social work placement...) and what your university requires to be put in place in terms of your personal safety and wellbeing. You also need to know if a tutor will be required to check your placement, and carry out reviews while you are there. If a tutor is expected to check on you during your placement you need to know how far they are willing to travel to do that.

Once you know all that, then you can start talking to possible placement opportunities. Your university ought to be able to help you with drafting a letter and suggesting general places to try, also look at what type of placements are available through your university so you have an idea what kind of places will take students.

india

I have spoke to my university and they said I could look for my own placement but didn't offer any help with looking and letters.

tiny_courageous

When I did my social work training the uni had to offer a placement within 1 hour's travel of the uni. Have they actually offered you anything yet? I would say don't just look at local authorities, as statutory placements are hard to get through the uni, nevermind on your own. Are there any hostels, charities, family support agencies, etc that you could approach? The uni will need to approve the placement, identify a practice teacher for it - but they will also pay for you to have the placement there, which can be a good incentive for a smaller charity to take you on. Is this your first placement? How many will you have to do in total?

cupcake23

I am going to do social work in september and i got told at my intereview they give you a choice of 3 in the area ?

india

tiny_courageous wrote: »

When I did my social work training the uni had to offer a placement within 1 hour's travel of the uni. Have they actually offered you anything yet? I would say don't just look at local authorities, as statutory placements are hard to get through the uni, nevermind on your own. Are there any hostels, charities, family support agencies, etc that you could approach? The uni will need to approve the placement, identify a practice teacher for it - but they will also pay for you to have the placement there, which can be a good incentive for a smaller charity to take you on. Is this your first placement? How many will you have to do in total?

There are alot of those kind of organisations. I didn't think about that, thanks. This is my first placement. I will do two in total. The uni did say expect to travel up to 1.5 hours.

india

sashyy wrote: »

I am going to do social work in september and i got told at my intereview they give you a choice of 3 in the area ?

We definetly don't get three choices. They mad it very clear placements are hard to find and unless there is a good reason why we can not do one. we should take the first one allocated to us.

tiny_courageous

india wrote: »

There are alot of those kind of organisations. I didn't think about that, thanks. This is my first placement. I will do two in total. The uni did say expect to travel up to 1.5 hours.

Definitely apply to local authorities too, as a statutory placement is worth its weight in gold when applying for jobs, I've found, but do try voluntary agencies as a good alternative. It'd be worth you reading through all the key roles you'll have to fulfil for each placement, that way when you look at the work each place does, you'll have an idea about whether it'll be suitable.

squirrelchops

As a second year placement you sholdn't be expecting a statutory placement. These are often left for the 3rd year placement due to shortages of placements and also the rquired level of work in a statutory placement is often very difficult for year 2 students to undertake.

The only issue I see arising in you choosing your own placement is that soemoen has to be validated as suitable to be your assessor or supervisor. Also most Unis conduct an audit to assess suitability of the placement. So you may get a placement near to home but if you are unable to get your required NOS then it isn't a suitable placement.

My Uni had placements all over the county and no one was that far from home to be honest so you may be surprised. Those with children put as a priority location over placement type.

Also, did you not think about this being an issue when you started the degree?????

india

I did ask in my interview about placements and they told me they had place in a local authority that was 40 mins away froom me. This year they said there no places there.

squirrelchops wrote: »

As a second year placement you sholdn't be expecting a statutory placement. These are often left for the 3rd year placement due to shortages of placements and also the rquired level of work in a statutory placement is often very difficult for year 2 students to undertake.

The only issue I see arising in you choosing your own placement is that soemoen has to be validated as suitable to be your assessor or supervisor. Also most Unis conduct an audit to assess suitability of the placement. So you may get a placement near to home but if you are unable to get your required NOS then it isn't a suitable placement.

My Uni had placements all over the county and no one was that far from home to be honest so you may be surprised. Those with children put as a priority location over placement type.

Also, did you not think about this being an issue when you started the degree?????

lilysgarden

See what the uni offer and contact the placement they offer you. Most of the placements available where I studied, although technically close to home, could take up to 2 hours to commute to if traffic is bad. All of the placements available in my area took into account those that have families and would allow things like home working, or making up hours on days when someone else could have the kids for a bit.