Lack of Statutory Placements
I am
incredibly concerned by today’s Community Care article reporting Bill
McKitterick’s comments about the lack of statutory placement available for
students. On my first day I was
horrified to discover there were over 80 of us all crammed into a wooden hut –
a temporary home for the faculty whilst another building was being
refurbished. The general noise disruption
of this number of students was enough to cause distractions; some of us became
quite frustrated and angry with the university for not limiting the numbers, considering
we were in a temporary accommodation which is not compatible with learning. Could an institute teaching the future
generations of social workers really be so financially focused to the detriment
of the students? Fast forward 18 months
and we’ve just finished our first placement - very few of us have been in
statutory settings, the majority of us in charities. In another 18 months, we’ll be £1000’s in
debt, and during the course a number of relationships have broken down due to
the stress, and also there have been major costs in terms of our children (I
didn’t feel like I saw my children for 5 months!) and for what? To discover that my university has taken more
students than placements available? Nearly
a quarter of us will end up unemployed – within an occupation supposedly desperate
for staff because we fail to get placements within a statutory setting.
So why don’t
statutory agencies want students? We all
know that social workers are over worked, do students really add that much to
the work load? Should every locality
office be required to have a certain number of student placements available?
And should
universities really be enrolling such large numbers of students if they aren’t
able to fulfil the requirements of the degree?
There are so
many questions – how did we get into this situation and how to move forward? I wish the task force well! Perhaps I should write to the Sun’s agony
aunt?