Private Care Sector Workforce Initiative

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Report on the Private Sector Practice Learning Project 2010

A report on a project to develop, provide and evaluate Social Work placements in private sector care homes in the Tayforth area

The Scottish Social Services Learning Network Tayforth (“the Learning Network”) Strategic Management Board agreed to take forward this partnership project in collaboration with the Private Care Sector Workforce Initiative during 2010/2011. The project was funded through the Learning Network and the daily placement fee (in Scotland this is provided by the Government through the universities) and carried out in partnership with the Private Care Sector Workforce Initiative (PSWI) and the University of Dundee.

A primary aim of this project was to develop capacity within the care home sector to support social services learners and to consider the sustainability issues in providing social work practice learning opportunities within care home settings. It was also intended to contribute to an improved understanding of the role of the private sector by future social workers and care managers.

The project provided the opportunity to consolidate the work of the previous pilots in care homes and further develop the model by piloting a number of „blended‟ placements, that is placements where social work students draw work from more than one setting. In this model, they would spend part of the time in a local authority or statutory setting and the rest in a private social care setting, including care home, care at home or a housing support services.

The scope of the project was to develop, provide and evaluate Social Work placements in private sector care homes within part of the geographical area covered by Tayforth Learning Network, that is, in Dundee, Angus and Fife. Eight placements were provided in seven care homes and one private hospital in the autumn/winter of 2010.

Initial discussions had anticipated also including the Open University, the University of Stirling and NHS Tayside as partners but the timing of the project did not allow for this widening of the stakeholder pool. The project was led by a Project Board of representatives of these stakeholders.

This evaluative report documents what happened within this project, analyses and discusses data collected from most of the stakeholders prior and subsequent to the placement and locates the findings within the context of demography, policy, practice and some of the relevant published work. It is hoped that the findings and recommendations may be useful to the wider Social Services education community in taking forward this important initiative.

The report contains a number of appendices with the aim of informing the reader of some of the detail of the project as well as providing resource material for on-going work in this area of educational practice and to make the outputs of the project as widely available as possible. The Project Team encourages the use and adaptation of the appendices and only requests the usual attribution where relevant.

See the full report Click here

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