Social Work Placements in General Practice

Facilitating Learning and Improving Wellbeing

Dr Ines Zuchowski, a Research Fellow at The Cairns Institute, and Ms Simoane McLennan led a North Queensland Public Health Network-funded research to develop, implement and evaluate a field education placement curriculum for social work student placement in General Practice [GP] clinics. They worked closely with a reference group to develop and trail a social work curriculum preparing and supporting social work students for and in the placement in the GP setting. Six students completed their social work placements in four GP clinic in North Queensland between December 2021 and June 2022. “While social work is well-established in hospitals and other health services in Australia, GP is an area of practice where social work is currently underrepresented, yet has so much to offer to enhance primary health care, patient outcomes and community wellbeing”, Dr Zuchowski says.

Ms McLennan and Dr Zuchowski have finalised the social work curriculum after the student placements were completed. Feedback highlights the usefulness of the social work student placement curriculum for GP. Comments included that the curriculum was ‘extremely useful, informative and concise; and that the modules enabled ‘learning about GP settings, how Medicare works and what it does, and how NDIS works’.

Dr Zuchowski is currently evaluating the project and exploring lessons learnt. “Overall, early indications are that this was a very worthwhile project with positive feedback highlighting that the social work student placements in general practice led to student learning and benefits for patients and the clinics”, Dr Zuchowski suggests. Students had a range of learning experiences, working with patients individually face to face, over zoom, phone or via home visits and outreach in Karumba.
“However, not all placements ran smoothly in the busy general practice environment, and we have to explore ways forward”. Dr Zuchowski says. “Students in GP placements require additional individual, group and peer supervision as social work supervisors are not on site.” She outlined that for social work placements in GP to work well four dimensions were important: Preparation and professional development; access to supervision; the clinic context, opportunities and environment; and student qualities and learning goals.

Dr Zuchowski argues that an important factor of successful social work practice in a GP setting is the ability to articulate what social work is and what it can offer a GP setting. “Social work placements are opportunities for GP practices to consider how social work could be integrated in the daily task and service delivery within each participating primary health service provider, however, as GP staff often are not well aware what social work can offer, students need to be able to articulate their social work knowledge, skills and understanding.”