New report looks at the experience and voice of learners on regulated social work programmes

A new report looks at the experience and voice of learners on regulated social work courses, showing us how we can quality assure social work courses in Wales.

We commissioned the Institute of Public Care (IPC), Oxford Brookes to research what learners think about regulated courses and suggest what steps we can take next to improve their experience.

57 students and representatives from nine universities and nine postgraduate students took part in the research.

Regulated social work courses include:

• undergraduate and post-graduate social work courses
• the Consolidation courses
• Practice Educator courses (also known as ‘Enabling Practice’)
• and Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP).

Our main findings:

universities:

• most courses have processes to get feedback from students and understand the importance of listening to students as different stages of their learning
• tutors play an important role in supporting equality, diversity, and inclusion
• learning providers would like to improve ‘two way’ communication opportunities with learners.

practice educators:

• the main way practice educators encourage and listen to students' feedback is through professional and reflective supervision. This supervision is also used as a forum to share feedback from people who access care and support
• the role of practice educators was often seen as an important way to promote learner voice.

students:

• the most common methods of promoting and capturing learner voice is through student representative forums, tutorial support groups, virtual drop-in support sessions, and module evaluations
• the amount of information that’s shared during the enrolment process can sometimes leave students feeling overwhelmed about the curriculum.
• systems need to be put in place to better hear from students with protected characteristics.

Recommendations for us:

• ask students to attend face-to-face or virtually at the learning institutions student rep forums, tutorial support groups, or as part of the student support days for post qualifying programmes  
• improve quality monitoring as part of the review cycle to meet with students, either face-to-face or virtually, to get their feedback.
• develop a ‘learner voice accessibility champions’ forum to help students with protected characteristics access information about learner voice with support and guidance available in alternative formats. 

Our next steps in response to the report:

• we'll work with courses to promote Equality Diversity and Inclusion, and show how learner voice can be included in their teaching and learning
• we'll consult universities, student, practice educators and employers on the findings of the report
• findings will be incorporated into annual monitoring reports of regulated social work courses and reviewed through annual monitoring processes
• and we’ll use these findings to help with the next review of rules and guidance for regulated courses to better promote the voice of the learner.

Contact us if you’d like a copy of the full report.