SOWK14009 - Fieldwork Education 2

General Information

Unit Synopsis

In this final fieldwork placement, you will immerse yourself in a professional practice environment, gaining a strong sense of competence and confidence in preparation for entering the social work profession. Field education aims to provide you with a robust and fulfilling learning experience, ensuring a collaborative endeavour between the university, you as a student, host organisations, and supervisors. The focus of activities will be on learning outcomes directly linked to the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) Practice Standards. Field education is a distinctive pedagogy for social work education, enabling you to integrate classroom learning with professional practice, refine your ways of thinking, doing, and being, and develop your professional identity, integrity, and practice frameworks. Throughout the placement, you will be socialised into the profession by engaging in real practice contexts, creating a constructive and reciprocal learning space. A Field Education Manual will guide you through the placement process, providing a detailed framework and administrative arrangements, including attendance and assessment requirements, as well as roles and responsibilities of all parties. The manual outlines the inherent requirements and performance expectations based on the AASW Practice Standards and ASWEAS General and Profession-Specific Graduate Attributes. You are required to attend the compulsory learning intensive associated with the co-requisite unit, SOWK14010, and participate in designated call-back sessions.

Details

Level Undergraduate
Unit Level 4
Credit Points 18
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 4
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.375
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites

Prerequisites: Students must have completed SOWK13009, SOWK14005, and SOWK14006 before enrolling in this unit.

Corequisite: SOWK14010 Integrating Theory and Practice II - This unit is designed to be taken concurrently with SOWK14009. A compulsory learning intensive (previously referred to as residential schools) is associated with SOWK14010, and students enrolled in SOWK14009 are required to attend this learning intensive week.

These unit must be completed in the final term of CC48 Bachelor of Social Work (Honours), CL71 Bachelor of Social Work.

Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).

Class Timetable View Unit Timetable
Residential School No Residential School

Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2025

Term 2 - 2025 Profile
Online

Attendance Requirements

All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 18-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 37.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 450 hours for the unit.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Professional Practice Plans (learning plans) 0%
2. Learning logs / diaries / Journal / log books 0%
3. Presentation 0%

This is a pass/fail (non-graded) unit. To pass the unit, you must pass all of the individual assessment tasks shown in the table above.

Past Exams

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Previous Feedback

Term 2 - 2023 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 100.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 32.5% response rate.

Feedback, Recommendations and Responses

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Source: SUTE
Feedback
Fieldwork is a fantastic way to learn. It is just unfortunate that it is 1000 hours of un-paid work. It add additional financial stress to an already stressful situation
Recommendation
The social work field education team appreciate that unpaid hours of work is challenging and we are always open to consider work based paid opportunities that sit within the ASWEAS guidelines to support students.
Action Taken
There is currently a strong campaign to address unpaid student placements. CQU is highly driven to support students into paid opportunities; however, the campaign is seeking to secure federal government funding to ensure all students receive a living allowance whilst in work-integrated learning.
Source: SUTE
Feedback
'Provided clear and knowledgeable explanations' and at times 'Make sure your feedback is clear and useable'
Recommendation
Feedback is important and we appreciate that for some we are clear and for others they require additional information for clarity. The Field Education team work hard to supply feedback to all students in a timely and clear manner.
Action Taken
There have been improvements this year to include focused feedback for each task that is relevant to their field-based learning rather than relying on practice feedback in the field to address some of this.
Source: SUTE
Feedback
All the CQU lecturers were very supportive, and the material was consistent and beneficial. Thank you.
Recommendation
Thank you we work hard to ensure your journey is successful.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: SUTE
Feedback
Optional zoom catch-up's throughout the term would have been great. Even just to check in and see how the students were doing
Recommendation
We are introducing this in term 1 2024. We have avoided this as it adds extra pressure to attend for students and usually allowed this 'check-in' to take place through the liaison role. However, we will have zoom catch-up's for those who wish and are able to take part.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: SUTE
Feedback
I think there needed to be clearer expectations for my placement organisation, as I was often treated more as a worker. There were certain comments made during the supervision for my mid placement review that very much solidified this.
Recommendation
Whilst this is generally thought to be undertaken through initial contact, we have now implemented formal meetings to ensure any new agency or supervisor is clear on their responsibility to the student as a learner.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: SUTE
Feedback
I think the amount of expectations of assessment requirements are difficult on top of placement and other learning units.
Recommendation
Every year we explore ways to streamline tasks to evidence learning and have again addressed reduction in expectations in the form of number of tasks and sought to condense the tasks in order to reduce pressures.
Action Taken
In Progress
Unit learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  1. Demonstrate the integration of professional social work knowledge, skills, and values within the placement context, in alignment with the AASW Code of Ethics and AASW Practice Standards, and organisational context for practice, including adherence to legislative and policy frameworks.
  2. Critically reflect on your social work practice, incorporating self-care strategies, complex problem-solving skills, and cross-cultural competency.
  3. Conduct comprehensive assessments of clients' needs and design, implement, and evaluate appropriate intervention strategies using social work theoretical frameworks.
  4. Construct and justify a practice framework relevant to your emerging social work identity and demonstrate its application in various contexts.

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4
1 - Professional Practice Plans (learning plans) • • •
2 - Learning logs / diaries / Journal / log books • • •
3 - Presentation •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4
1 - Communication • •
2 - Problem Solving • • •
3 - Critical Thinking •
5 - Team Work • • •
7 - Cross Cultural Competence • • •
8 - Ethical practice • • • •
10 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures •
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10