In this episode, we focus on the student social worker and what they may need to make the most of their social work placement. Thinking about factors such as first impressions, values, behaviours, professional boundaries, commitment, dress code, managing expectations in terms of equipment and learning, preparedness, understanding of PCFs, Social Work England Standards and much more.

Our hosts Tienga Ngale and Colleen Simon will be joined by two wonderful social workers:

Maria Fashakin who is a Liaison and Diversion Practitioner/Mental Health Social Worker/AMHP/DV Ambassador and

Harpal Sokhi is a Newly Qualified Social Worker. 

In this episode, we focus on the role of Practice Educators in a placement. It will include a conversation about what practice educators do, their key roles and contributions to the experience of students on placement and power relations that are ever-present. Our hosts, Tienga Ngale and Colleen Simon will be joined by our guests for this episode:

Jodie Howard is a current ASYE SW in a local authority. Jodie had both of her placements in non-statutory settings and had the experience of only a PE on placement and both Practice Supervisor and PE.

Molly Meakin is an Advanced Practitioner and experienced practice educator, currently working with the Safeguarding Adults Team in the London Borough of Hillingdon Social Services

Section

In this season, Tienga Ngale, our MSc social work student, Colleen Simon, Head of Social Work at the North West London NHS Foundation Trust, and their guests will de explore different aspects of social work students' placements.

In their first episode they speak with

In this episode our students, Rathigga Pushparajah and Tienga Ngale interview Dr Sharlotte Tusasiirwe about her recent article titled Is it indigenisation or decolonisation of social work in Africa? A focus on Uganda. The article was recently published in the African Journal of Social Work and it can be found here:

https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajsw/article/view/224731

Dr Sharlotte Tusasiirwe, born in Uganda, is an activist, social worker and educator. She gained her Master's

Rathigga and Tienga were particularly drawn to the article as it highlighted concepts critical to anti–racist social work practice, such as decolonization and colonisation. The author explains how colonisation affected social work practice in Uganda.

In this episode, our students Jade Blake, Rathigga Pushparajah and Georgina Georgina Ataa-Nyarko are joined by Solomon Amadasun from the School of Health and Social Development, Deakin University, Australia. The four discuss Solomon's work. 

Solomon is a widely published author and has extensively researched social work practice in Nigeria. He aims to shed light on the fact that though willing, upcoming social workers are ill-equipped to apply the anti-oppressive approach in Nigeria due to the social and political climate in the country. In his writing, he discusses where the difficulty comes from and provides suggestions/implications to the social educators in Nigeria to adopt the outlook of strengthening the depth of anti-oppressive discourse both in the classroom and on placement

Article:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JHASS-12-2019-0082/full/html

Further Work:

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1946-0432

Dr Zibonele Zimba has a PhD in social work and has published several articles on anti-racism in South African social work. He will be able to offer unique insight into the social and political contexts of anti-racist social work practice in South Africa.

Article:

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/brunelu/detail.action?docID=6234870#

Brief bio and overview of publications:

https://www.uj.ac.za/members/zibonele-f-zimba/

Dr Kamei Samson studied social theory, social psychology and Indian religions. He is engaged in research at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies and the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

We chose Dr Kamei Samson to partake in the podcast because we found his article, "Anti–Racist Social Work Practice in India", to offer excellent insights into anti-racist social work practice in India. To overcome India’s oppressive social work practices, he recommends that social workers should seek institutionalised solutions instead of focusing on the victim's personality. Unsurprisingly, he commented on social workers emphasising the clinical social work approach instead of dealing with social problems such as racism. This view can be commonly perceived in social work practice globally.

Teaser for season 3

To learn more about Ginger Giraffe, please see here: t.ly/Ovaa

To learn about Brunel MSc social work programme, please visit us here: t.ly/19bf

Dan Vale from Ginger Giraffe and Brunel MSc social work students, Reem Mahdi and Nikita Kahuhu interview Sarah Rose, a PhD candidate at the University of Edinborough and the author of the recently published article, Surviving or thriving? Enhancing the emotional resilience of social workers in their organisational settings