Jo Mensinga

Storying career choice: employing narrative approaches to better understand students’ experience of choosing social work as a preferred career

Narrative methodologies promise an increased understanding of the place career choice holds for those entering the social work profession. However, as a novice researcher the plethora of approaches to be negotiated can be overwhelming. While narrative researchers tend to position their projects according to the perceived purpose and the emergent benefits of the approach, in practice they must also make decisions about whether to understand a narrative as a structural or a representational construct, explore it holistically or categorically, and/or focus on the narratives content rather than its form. Several researchers using narrative methodologies to explore career/life choice stories provide useful insights into how participants make meaning of and navigate their way through the myriad of personal, social and professional agendas to make their decisions. However for me, Clandinin and Connellys narrative inquiry approach combined with Riessmans notion of social positioning provided a deeper understanding about the gendered nuances of aspiring social workers motivation for entering the profession.

Implementing and evaluating an alternative model for training field work educators: A pilot study in Central Queensland

In conjunction with academic social work educators, fieldwork supervisors are significant and influential instructors of emerging social work practitioners. This partnership is typically enhanced by universities offering training for fieldwork supervisors to assist and support them in their important roles. This can be challenging however in flexibly delivered programs where supervisors may be located in areas distant from the universities with which students are affiliated. Further, within the current human services context particularly in rural areas, fieldwork education is becoming increasingly subject to a range of organisational and policy imperatives that have the potential to limit the capacity of fieldwork supervisors to proactively engage with social work education This paper describes a pilot project developed and evaluated in Central Queensland Australia which aimed to address some of these challenges. A multifacetted approach to training, mentoring and supporting fieldwork supervisors of social work students on practicum was developed and implemented across diverse organisational and geographical contexts. Findings of the evaluation and implications for fieldwork education are presented.

Harnessing opportunities to enhance the distance learning experience of MSW students: an appreciative inquiry process

Abstract Despite a long history of engagement with distance education models in Australia, the adoption of distance learning in social work education has been cautious and social work educators’ ability to teach and develop relationship-based skills in distance and online environments, is consistently questioned. This paper reports on a research project conducted with staff and students of a regional Australian university offering a qualifying Master of Social Work program through blended learning models. Underpinned by a framework of Appreciative Inquiry, the project employed focus groups and semi-structured interviews with staff and an online survey with students to identify issues of concern and to inform the redesign of course delivery. Pivotal to students’ experience was the need to create a sense of cohort to overcome perceptions of isolation and abandonment when subjects are delivered in distance modes rather than face to face. Moreover, inaccurate assumptions about postgraduate students’ familiarity with basic academic conventions and online teaching strategies were seen to contribute to a sense of personal failure and incompetence that could lead to withdrawal from the course. Strategies and processes introduced to address these matters are discussed and preliminary evaluations of their impact shared.

Handbook of Mindfulness: Theory, Research, and Practice

detailed exploration of (Northern American) historical context and policy analysis is undertaken in Chapters 2 and 3 with limited relevance for the Australian reader. However, the following four chapters have a focus on practice and research that does translate very well to an international context. Chapter 4 is described as “foundational” and it does indeed present a sound overview of the complex nature of kinship care, the experiences of kinship carers, and what is known about children and young people in kinship care. Chapter 5, “Safety for Children in Kinship Care”, references the North American legislation and processes, while also offering a series of comprehensive case studies that build on earlier chapters. A detailed exploration of psychological safety versus psychological abandonment precedes a series of considerations for relative carers. The chapter concludes with a helpful set of 10 strategies to enhance the wellbeing of carers themselves, before posing a series of study and discussion questions. Chapter 6, “Increasing the Well-Being of Children in Kinship Care”, is a rich resource for students and practitioners who want to deepen their theoretical knowledge and specific understanding of the lived experience of a child living with kin. Challenges faced by children are carefully presented before a range of strategies for developing relationship competencies are discussed. The following chapter discusses the critical issue of permanence from a theoretical and practicebased perspective. The final chapters of the book deal with macro-level change, research, and workforce development respectively. Here Denby highlights that, in spite of a plethora of information about kinship care, research evidence is limited. What follows is a series of considerations for future research, including the need to determine models of effective kinship practice. Kinship Care is an accessible and engaging yet dense theoretical book. The author draws upon extensive theory and research, helpfully interspersed with realistic case study material and challenging questions for discussion and reflection. Despite its strong North American orientation, Australian social workers and students will gain much from reading this book. Many of the issues raised and explored by the author do in fact reflect the complexities of practice in this contested area in Australia.