#CUHKSWK2023
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Plenary Session
Section 3: Social Work Education
Section 3: Social Work Education
Preparing social work students for interprofessional practice in clinical/healthcare settings
Abstract:
Social workers are often employed in interprofessional settings, such as clinical/healthcare settings. To achieve effective outcomes in their work with service users and caregivers in clinical/healthcare settings, social workers need to be confident in working with other professionals, such as physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals. Therefore, social work students should develop interprofessional/clinical skills that build upon their core knowledge, communication skills, ethics, and values. To prepare social work students for interprofessional practice after graduation, more learning/practical opportunities in the curriculum of the Master Programme of Social Science in Social Work offered by The Chinese University of Hong Kong have been offered in recent years. For instance, fieldwork opportunities in interprofessional practice have been expanded, and more courses on clinical social work have been offered in the social work curriculum to train students to work competently in clinical/healthcare settings after graduation. Future trends in social work curriculum for interprofessional practice will be discussed.
Sustainable professionalism: The development of professional competency frameworks for social workers in Hong Kong
Abstract:
To regulate ethical and safe practices, different professions have set standards for proficiency for their members that outline the expected knowledge, skills, attributes, and behaviors. Most of the time, these standards are developed by a panel of experts. The Hong Kong Academy of Social Work conducted a multi-phase mixed-method study to co-create relevant professional capability frameworks with frontline social workers, academia, supervisors, managers, other professionals, and ex-users. The first phase was a scoping exercise in generating potential items. The competency frameworks of the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Australia, Canada, Singapore, and Bogo’s professional competence model were reviewed and integrated into a crude framework in three aspects and nine domains. Twenty-nine stakeholders, including practicing social workers, social work managers and supervisors, academia and researchers, and ex-service users, participated in a consensus workshop, and a 43-item questionnaire was developed. It underwent refinement through a 3-round Delphi study. There were 100 participants in the first round, and eventually 71 in the third round. A tripartite, three-tier eight domains and 44 aspects of social work professional competence framework is developed in 2020. It was reviewed and revised to 47 aspects in 2023. Subsequently, three specific professional competency frameworks for school social workers, family, and children social workers, and mental health social workers were developed through a similar process.
*The study is funded by the Keswick Foundation
Enhancing social work professionals’ interprofessional collaboration through continuing professional education
Abstract:
Growing emphasis on interprofessional education and collaboration (IPEC) is observed across the globe, which encourages helping professionals to learn with, from, and about one another, both within and across disciplines. For social workers, who are commonly considered interdisciplinary team members and experts in social aspects and required to work on an apparently shared but often different common goals of a team, IPEC might be of particular importance in facilitating the process of teamwork, negotiation and collaboration. To understand whether IPEC would be beneficial to participants, or enhance the general learning effectiveness, previous participants of Continuing Professional Education Unit at the Department of Social Work, The Chinese University of Hong Kong were invited to complete an online survey on IPEC, which covers four aspects including (i) Values and ethics; (ii) Role and responsibilities; (iii) Interprofessional communication and teamwork, and (iv) Professional competence, during June to August 2023. Two-hundred and thirty-seven (237) responses were received, with 81% from social work professionals. The majority of respondents confirmed that learning about other disciplines is essential to the work of their own profession. The results of the survey put a limelight on the future development of continuing professional education.
Incorporating interprofessional education in social work curriculum – Benefits and challenges
CHAN KC1, LEE VWY2, WONG, WT3, LO SHS4, LAM, KY4, YEUNG SCY2, SO WK2, CHEUNG MC1
1. Department of Social Work, The Chinese University of Hong Kong,
2. Centre for Learning Enhancement and Research,
The Chinese University of Hong Kong,
3. Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
4. The Nethersole School of Nursing,
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Abstract:
Interprofessional Education (IPE) has been recommended by WHO as a promising strategy to scale up global health workforce production, and is considered by health educators and policymakers as critical to equip modern-day care professionals with ‘collaborative practice-ready’ skills and mindset, who are pivotal in, promoting patient-centered care and responding effectively to local health needs and system challenges. Meanwhile, there have been ongoing demands for better integration of health and social care. However, social work as a profession has not been routinely included into interprofessional Education (IPE) among tertiary education institutes, while, on the other hand, many social work professional programmes are searching for feasible and practical pedagogical approaches to incorporate IPE in their training curriculum.
This presentation is to introduce a credit-bearing IPE programme which is jointly organised and delivered by the Faculty of Medicine and the Department of Social Work of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) to both social work students and students from across health professions. Since its inception, the course has established teaching collaborations with the Center for Interprofessional Education (CIPE) of University of Toronto (UT). As a result, one of the unique features of this IPE course is that CUHK students are required to work and interact closely with UT students who also attend the lectures/workshops via zoom, in-patient interviews, class discussions and group projects. The internationalised component is intended to broaden students’ knowledge of different health systems and social context and deepen their understanding of how these contextual factors could shape and affect interprofessional collaboration (IPC).
Apart from discussing the IPE framework shared by UT in assessing students’ IPC knowledge and capacity, the presentation will also highlight certain program adaptations which have been put in place and tailored to the specific needs and training background of social work students, and discuss students’ learning experience and IPC capacity development based upon a post-lecture/workshop debriefing and the analysis of their written reflections.