Hi, I was just wondering if anyone has attended an interview at goldsmith recently as I have an interview this week. All the comments on the forum are referring to 2 years ago. Any help will be useful.. Secondly I attended an interview at London Met but was not successful. I asked for feedback and was told that the values question let me down, the question was "could I give an example of when I had to deal with a service user who had different values to mine, how did I deal with it. Any ideas of how to handle this question in the future? Thanks so much.
Just tell em the're wrong.
Values could refer to a wide range of scenarios - you might be working with people who have racist or sexist or homophobic views for example, you might need to consider how you would deal with that as a worker. Or you could be keen to promote independence and person centred approaches but find close family of service users are don't feel the person can be indepenent because of disability.
I would say just think of a few scenarios and how you would respond to them. Values underpin social work so have a look at the GSCC social work values for the kind of thinking they would be looking for and think about the kinds of situations you might encounter different value bases. Good luck. C
Or, heaven forbid, studentist.
Shirack: Or, heaven forbid, studentist.
Good point! yes defo - not just service users but also other social work staff.
Thanks C. That was helpful.
Hi esther38, I have recently attended an interview at Goldsmith, so may be able to help. Although, just to save time and make sure I'm not providing you with useless information. Are you applying for the BA or MA? Also, are you attending the 1st stage which is the written test or are have you been called backed for 2nd stage, which is a 1 to 1 interview?
Sorry just received this email. Hope you can still help. It's MA social work interview not the written test.
Thanks so much
Hi
I have the written test part of the selection process in 2 weeks, could any one offer me advice about it? There seem to be so many text books that they recommend, is it necessary to read lots? Is there a specific question, or are you expected to write about working with a service users as they indicate in the information?
Any advice would be gratefully received.
Thanks
I didn't read all the books as they were too many. Understand what anti-discrimination and anti-oppression means and relate it to when you used this in your practice. For example I said something along the line of language barrier issues and how a service user can be discriminated against because of the language they speak. If as a practitioner you refuse to provide an interpreter for that service user, apparently you will be discriminating against the person as she/he would not be empowered to contribute effectively to enable them to receive the services required. Hope this helps?
Hi esther38.
I hope you get this in time as I've only just see your reply as well. At the interview they said they were asking everyone the same questions, so hopefully it still applies. There are 4 main questions they are asking any other questions will be subsequent to the answer you provide at the time.
The first question asks abour your reasons for choosing Social Work. However you respond here will be be personal to you of course. They then asked for an outline of the article used to sit the written test and 2/3 key issues. This gives you an opportunity to show your understanding if th article. Unfortunately, I can't suggest anything as I sat the BA test and I know for certain our tests were different. They also ask you to give an example of "social work practice" that you have been involved in. I spoke about work I had done with a specific young person of mine which successfully resulted in me challenging the Social Workers decision to not financially maintain the young persons housing. Which they had in fact chosen to accommodate him in. Unfortunately the YP was not entitled to housing benefit because if his status in the country. They were also looking at reflective practice within this question as I was asked about how I felt after and if there was anything I would have done differently.
Finally, they asked about group work and your experiences of it. Here you potentially have the option to talk about cohesively working with other agencies and the work involved within teams. This will potentially show your broader understanding of how important group work is. If you can relate it to a current learning experience that maybe useful, as that's the direction they are going in with the question. I related my answer to a group work activity recently done at college. I spoke about the role I played, the positives and the negatives and how I over came any challenges. In addition, I was asked what role I usually play in groups. Their reason for asking about groupwork is because the course numbers are small. Most of their work is done in "self directed groups" as they put it.
Their were 3 people, although only 2 were asking questions. 1 service user representative, Judith the admissions tutor and the person who will be taking over from Judith. She was jut merely observing the process.
I hope this helps in some way. It's my first time trying to assist someone one this forum. Hope you get the information in time and best of luck to you.
Whoops.....apologies!! Just spotted a couple of silly errors. I shall be more careful next time.