Placements are an essential element of your Social Work degree and our students tell us it’s one of the most enjoyable parts, putting what they have learned into practice.
Watch our Social Work students reflect on their placement experiences in schools, including how they have prepared them for their future careers, and the importance of having social workers in school settings:
Constituting 50% of the course, placements provide opportunities to apply and develop your knowledge, skills and values in a practice setting that’ll provide experience of statutory social work.
Placements provide you with the opportunity to work towards meeting the requirements of the Professional Standards and the Knowledge and Skills Statements. It is crucial that you are prepared for this and during your study you’ll be supported and prepared ahead for your placement.
All students will need to pass both placements, alongside all academic modules, in order to qualify for registration as a Social Worker with Social Work England. There is a dedicated placements team that will work closely with you to plan for both placements.
For students enrolled on Cambridge and Peterborough campuses, we have a teaching partnership with local partners including Peterborough City Council and Cambridge County Council and other partners (e.g. CAFCASS). You’ll most likely be matched locally, as this is where our placement providers will be centralised.
If you are a student at our Chelmsford campus, we also collaborate with Essex County Council, Southend-on-Sea Borough Council and Thurrock Council.
We also place students regularly with Suffolk County Council and Norfolk County Council, but we have an incredibly limited number of placements within London area.
You should plan for 4-5 day weekly commitment for the full-time courses plus private study and research.
You’ll be expected to travel to placement to a location that is no more than 1.5 hours of travel from your home location.
If you live outside East Anglia, the travel time to placement will be measured from your campus of study. We’ll endeavour to work with you to find a closer placement, however, this cannot be guaranteed. Our placement providers are primarily located within commutable distance of our campuses in Cambridge, Chelmsford and Peterborough.
You’ll have an opportunity to integrate theory and practice in your assessment and intervention when working with individuals, families, carers, groups or communities. You’ll be able to reflect upon your own values and beliefs and confront any conflict with the principles and values underpinning social work practice, with guided supervision.
There are opportunities to advocate for what is in the best interests of the service user, promoting service user voice and encouraging their independent choices. You'll undertake tasks such as interviewing service users to gather information, reviewing care plans, undertaking home visits, and needs versus risk assessments to promote relationship-based practice.
You’ll be guided to develop and understand the process of critical reflection and evaluation as a tool for improving professional practice.
In this final placement, you’ll be expected to undertake more complex tasks to demonstrate your developing knowledge, skills and values, building on what you’ll have covered in your first placement.
Tasks can include completing a single assessment or life story work if working in a children’s team, or undertaking a Mental Capacity Act (2005) assessment if working in an adults' team.
We'll assign much longer pieces of work to deepen and sharpen your social work skills in readiness for qualifying as a social worker. You’ll engage with assessment, intervention and the management of risk within complex situations.
You'll also develop an ability to manage and be accountable for your own social work practice in an organisational setting, making competent use of supervision and support.
You’ll be assigned a Practice Educator, who will support you during your training and assess your practice over the duration of the placement.
PEs are social workers trained in the teaching and assessment of students on practice placements and meet the Practice Educator Professional Standards (PEPS). Their role is to support you in integrating theory and knowledge from university into practice and are responsible for the assessment of your practice.
The Placement Tutor will also be a critical support person for you on placement. They are a member of the university. Most of our placement tutors are academics within the Social Work team, so you’ll know them.
The PT will attend meetings at the placement site to ensure that the placement is set up in a way that’ll meet your learning needs, and the University’s requirements. They are also there to support you if you have any difficulties during the placement and are therefore your first point of contact for all placement related matters.