In this final fieldwork placement, you will immerse yourself in a professional practice environment, gaining a strong sense of competence and confidence in preparation for entering the social work profession. Field education aims to provide you with a robust and fulfilling learning experience, ensuring a collaborative endeavour between the university, you as a student, host organisations, and supervisors. The focus of activities will be on learning outcomes directly linked to the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) Practice Standards. Field education is a distinctive pedagogy for social work education, enabling you to integrate classroom learning with professional practice, refine your ways of thinking, doing, and being, and develop your professional identity, integrity, and practice frameworks. Throughout the placement, you will be socialised into the profession by engaging in real practice contexts, creating a constructive and reciprocal learning space. A Field Education Manual will guide you through the placement process, providing a detailed framework and administrative arrangements, including attendance and assessment requirements, as well as roles and responsibilities of all parties. The manual outlines the inherent requirements and performance expectations based on the AASW Practice Standards and ASWEAS General and Profession-Specific Graduate Attributes. You are required to attend the compulsory learning intensive associated with the co-requisite unit, SOWK14010, and participate in designated call-back sessions.

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Feedback from SUTE

Fieldwork is a fantastic way to learn. It is just unfortunate that it is 1000 hours of un-paid work. It add additional financial stress to an already stressful situation

The social work field education team appreciate that unpaid hours of work is challenging and we are always open to consider work based paid opportunities that sit within the ASWEAS guidelines to support students.

Feedback from SUTE

'Provided clear and knowledgeable explanations' and at times 'Make sure your feedback is clear and useable'

Feedback is important and we appreciate that for some we are clear and for others they require additional information for clarity. The Field Education team work hard to supply feedback to all students in a timely and clear manner.