Brunel University and the London Borough of Hillingdon have together launched an innovative Social Work Student Practice Learning Unit to help strengthen social work practice education with older people.
The new Local Authority Partnership launched yesterday [10 January 2011] at the London Borough of Hillingdon's Adult Social Care, Health and Housing unit. Six Brunel University MA social work students will spend 100 days over the next seven months developing their knowledge and practice skills with older people.
Dr Mary Pat Sullivan from the Brunel Institute for Ageing Studies and Adrienne Finch, a Brunel lecturer in Social Work, developed this new group model of practice learning to address social work's capacity to respond to the needs of an ageing population and ensure quality training that promotes wellbeing in later life. The model also includes older service users to help develop teaching and assessment in gerontological social work.
Given local and national interest in this gerontological social work partnership, the Unit will undergo evaluation and be disseminated through social work and social gerontology networks. The Brunel-Hillingdon partnership team anticipate further developments in the forthcoming year.