Being assessed

Stop for a minute. Think how much is asked of you on placement. It’s like starting a new job — but as well as settling in, developing your social work skills and trying to help service users, you are also going to be assessed. As Eve and Ellen note, you will need to manage both your work with service users and the requirements of your course to demonstrate your developing social work knowledge and skills. This chapter is going to help you find ways to make your assessed placement a success. Firstly, we discuss how social work practice is assessed in the UK and then consider key meetings and different people’s roles on placement. Secondly, we look at identifying examples of your work, which you will use to demonstrate that you have developed your social work skills. The last part of this chapter looks at what to do if you are having difficulties passing your placement, and who can help you.