Marie Diggins is practice development manager at the Social Care Institute for Excellence, the organisation responsible for promoting best practice in social care. She began her career as a social worker and then as an approved social worker and manager in a London Community Mental Health Team (CMHT). Marie maintains her management and practice skills by working one day a week in a CMHT. Marie compiled Resource Guide 3: Teaching and Learning Communication Skills in Social Work Education.

For some professions communication is a matter of life or death. Social work is one of these, as we have seen with The Laming Report¹ and other inquiries into adult and child deaths.

With the introduction of the social work degree, communication was established as a core learning outcome in the Department of Health's requirements for social work training.²

Recently, the Social Care Institute for Excellence, the organisation responsible for finding out what works best in social care, conducted a knowledge review to look at the most effective ways of teaching and learning communication skills.

Knowledge Review 6³ was commissioned to identify key practice messages. Instead, it uncovered a dearth of information and a huge area for development. While it identified several innovative approaches and theories being used in teaching, few of these teaching methods were published or had been thoroughly evaluated.

The knowledge review is accompanied by a resource guide⁴ by the same name which identifies principles of teaching communication skills, looks at what people are currently doing and gives practice examples.

The review uncovered a lack of evaluated practice that educators can use to underpin their teaching programmes and little coverage of students' different learning styles. As a result, although the degree puts a strong emphasis on communicating well, there is a limited evidence base to help educators identify what teaching and learning methods are most effective.

The range of practice examples identified show that the literature does not give an accurate picture of what is happening in current and emerging educational practice. The practice survey found that the most common pattern of teaching and learning communication skills was the inclusion of a dedicated communication skills module early in the course, or a strong communication component within an early module on methods, skills and practice. It found that the most common area covered in communication training was interviewing skills, such as asking open questions, non-verbal communication and empathy. This is usually taught in an experiential way, rather than being based on evaluated theories. There is also a clear emphasis on verbal communication, with little attention given to written skills.

Overall, there is a strong emphasis on experiential teaching and learning, such as role play, video work and small group work.

The evaluation of teaching tends to be concerned with satisfaction with the process and method of training, rather than individual and collective learning through learning aims and with outcome measurements. Assessment is also based on self-reporting ("I feel confident"). This is not enough. For example, service users, educators and agencies expressed concerns about students' written skills whereas students did not.

Also, service users are not involved in teaching communication skills and it is unclear whether the skills students are learning in the classroom are transferable to the workplace. As one educator observed, students consider the practice placement as a place to get experience but not a place to learn. This illustrates the importance of students understanding the application of theory to practice situations.

The knowledge review identified six areas for development:

• Theory. The theoretical knowledge base that underpins the teaching and learning of communication skills needs to be made more explicit, adopting the same academic rigour used in other areas of social work research and practice theory. More work needs to be done on how some of the theory about teaching and learning communication should be used in practice.
• The framework of teaching and learning. The ways in which communication skills are taught are as important as what is taught. Little of the literature suggested teaching frameworks that could accommodate different learning styles and there are concerns about how social work educators are trained in the content of teaching communication skills and in the approach used.
• The transferability of communication skills. Communication skills training must be better integrated with practice learning.
• Evaluation. More work is needed on measuring outcomes and the ways in which technology can be employed in supporting face-to-face learning and teaching. Scie and the Scottish Institute for Excellence in Social Work Education are working to explore ways of supporting social work educators to evaluate their work.
• User involvement. The core requirement of service user views in the design and delivery of the new degree makes it essential that educators begin to develop partnerships in this area. Scie has produced a free resource guide with practice guidance for involving service users and carers in the social work degree, called Involving Service Users and Carers in Social Work Education.
• Meeting different communication needs. The literature review found very little research or guidance about training in written communication skills or how to communicate with people of different cultures and with particular communications needs, for example, people who have English as a second language and children. It is important that more work is done in this area.

An increased emphasis on practice learning will require more rigorous systems and standards for teaching, learning and the assessment of communication skills within practice settings. It is important that as the degree programmes progress, more academic and practice educators disseminate the work they are undertaking in teaching and learning communication skills.

This point was driven home recently by professor John Carpenter from the University of Durham in an address to the Joint Social Work Education Conference in Glasgow. Carpenter pointed out that unless social work educators began to evaluate the outcomes of the new degree, "other people will do it for you!"

Are you a good communicator?   

Service users agree that social workers who are good at communication: 

• Are courteous and turn up on time. 
• Don't use jargon, and speak directly to service users, not carers or personal assistants. 
• Really hear and accept what carers are saying. 
• Explain what is happening and why. 
• Say what they are going to do, don't over-promise, and are honest when they can't help. 
• Are patient and make enough time to communicate with disabled service users. 
• Recognise the loss of dignity people experience when approaching social services for the first time and respond sensitively. 
• Don't assume anything about a user's abilities simply because of a disability.  l Understand the importance of privacy, peace and quiet, and users' and carers' choice of meeting place. 
• Know that closed questions (questions that need a yes or no reply) can be easier to answer for service users with communication difficulties. 
• Remember that young people may prefer to talk while doing something else. 
• Build trust and warmth.

Abstract

This article looks at new research findings on how communication skills in social work education are taught. It looks at current teaching practice and how it is evaluated, identifies areas for improvement and provides some practical suggestions from service users on how social workers can improve their communication skills.

References   

1 W H Laming, The Victoria Climbie Inquiry: Report of an Inquiry by Lord Laming, 2003, Stationery Office 

2 Department of Health, Requirements for Social Work Training, 2003, Department of Health, available at www.dh.gov.uk/assetRoot/04/06/02/62/04060262.pdf  

3 P Trevithick, S Richards, G Ruch, B Moss, L Lines and O Manor,  Teaching and Learning Communication Skills in Social Work Education, in Knowledge Review 6. 2004, Social Care Institute for Excellence, available at www.scie.org.uk 

4 M Diggins, Teaching and Learning Communication Skills in Social Work Education, in Resource Guide 3, 2004, available as above

Further information   

• Knowledge Review 6: Teaching and learning communication skills in social work education, Scie, www.scie.org.uk 
• Resource Guide 3: Teaching and learning communication skills in social work education, Scie 
• Knowledge review 1: Teaching and learning assessment skills in social work education, Scie  
• Resource guide 2: Involving service users and carers in social work education, Scie

Contact   

For copies of publications visit  www.scie.org.uk,call 020 7089 6840 or e-mail publications@scie.org.uk