Paula McFadden
Biographic Data
| ID | 5823459 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paula McFadden |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paula |
| FAMILY NAME | McFadden |
| SIGNATURE | MCFADDEN P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Ulster |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6025-5107 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 104 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 37 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Mapping the landscape of gender inclusion policy and guidance in higher education institutions in contested times
The discourse, surrounding gender identity and pronoun usage, has become increasingly prominent within education, law and society, marked by polarisation and media scrutiny. This paper investigates how United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are responding to the evolving sociolinguistic and legal landscape of pronoun inclusivity. Drawing on social systems theory and social constructionism, it explores how institutional guidance …
The effects of child protection social worker turnover on children and families: A scoping review addressing a critical gap in social work turnover research
For children and families engaged with statutory child protection systems, the loss of a social worker is more than a staffing issue; it is often the loss of a trusted relationship in a time of deep vulnerability. This scoping review explores the impact of social worker turnover on children, families, and carers, highlighting how instability in the workforce undermines the very relationships intended to support safety, placement stability, and pe…
A baseline survey of levels of motivation, well-being, and employment preferences of newly qualified social workers in the UK
The aim of this study is to examine levels of motivation, wellbeing, and employment preferences of newly qualified social workers who graduated in 2022. A mixed-method study design was employed using standardized measurements for wellbeing, measurable scales for motivation and employment preferences, and qualitative questions about job preferences. The online survey was completed by 176 final-year social work students in Northern Ireland during t…
A Three-Year Comparison of Global Social Worker Working Conditions
Social workers play a vital role in the lives of some of the most vulnerable people around the world. However, evidence increasingly shows that social workers across the world are exposed to chronically difficult working conditions. This study seeks to outline the influence of working conditions on well-being of social workers worldwide, and compare whether working conditions and well-being changed across a three-year period via a two-phase cross…
Challenging times for early career social workers during the Covid-19 pandemic: A mixed methods study
The social work profession’s future lies largely in the hands of early career professionals (those working two years or less post-qualification). Their intentions to remain in the profession and their wellbeing affect their performance and system functioning. While the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic changed social work practice, its impact on early career social workers needs specific exploration. Repeated cross-sectional surveys we…
Children’s Social Work Safe Staffing Supply and Workforce Demands Analysis: A Case Study from Northern Ireland
The matter of ensuring adequate staffing levels in children’s social work services has become increasingly prominent due to challenges related to retention and staff well-being and exacerbated by limited governmental budgetary investment. Various operational tools and policy guidelines in the UK regulate staffing across different sectors of health and social care. However, frameworks for safe staffing in social work are less developed. This study…
Older people’s social work safe staffing supply and workforce demands analysis: A case study from Northern Ireland
In the UK, a range of operational tools and policy guidelines regulate staffing in various Health and Social Care sectors. Nonetheless, frameworks to ensure safe staffing in social work remain less advanced. This study focuses on older people’s social work community teams in Northern Ireland due to the high volume of cases and vacancies within these teams. Our findings provide evidence based on actual caseloads (direct work with service users) an…
Promoting staff retention in social work: Identifying the ‘push’ and the ‘pull’ factors from the perspective of newly qualified social workers
This study explores the push and pull factors influencing retention of Newly Qualified Social Workers (NQSWs). A mixed methods design, using standardized measures were used alongside questions capturing demographic data, motivation, employment preferences, and satisfaction with supervision. A sample of 122 NQSWs who graduated from one of three participating universities consented to participate. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS. Well-be…
Safe Staffing and Workload Management in Social Work: A Scoping Review of Legislation, Policy and Practice
In Northern Ireland, social work-specific legislation is planned for safe staffing across the governmental sector. As part of a broader research project to inform this development, we conducted a scoping review seeking examples of safe staffing definitions, safe staffing-related legislation, policy and practice in social work and associated professions from the UK and internationally. We searched English language databases in 2023 websites and re…
Perceptions of Safe Staffing, Self-Reported Mental Well-being and Intentions to Leave the Profession among UK Social Workers: A Mixed Methods Study
The purpose of this study was to examine social workers’ perceptions of safe staffing levels and correlate these perceptions with standardised measurements of well-being in the UK. This cross-sectional mixed-methods study analysed data from 406 social workers from November 2022 until late January 2023. Data were collected using anonymous online surveys including both qualitative and quantitative methods examining mental well-being, burnout and in…
Covid-19 Impact on Children’s Social Work Practice and Social Worker Well-being: A Mixed Methods Study from Northern Ireland and Great Britain during 2020–2022
Social workers were heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we examined the well-being, burnout and work conditions of UK children’s social workers at five time points of the COVID-19 pandemic. This was a cross-sectional mixed methods study analysing data from 1,621 social workers who worked in children’s services in the UK in 2020–2022. Data were collected using anonymous online surveys which included both quantitative and qual…
A Common Purpose? Social Work Students’ Social Justice Related Views in Finland and the island of Ireland
Exploring social work students’ views to understand how equipped they are to pursue the social justice mission of the profession should be of central academic and practical interest. There are, however, surprisingly few empirical studies focussing on social work students’ views on social justice-related issues from a comparative viewpoint. Such knowledge is thought to be of a wider international interest from a number of perspectives, including s…
Working conditions and well-being in UK social care and social work during Covid-19
Stress and mental health are among the biggest causes of sickness absence in the UK, with the Social Work and Social Care sectors having among the highest levels of stress and mental health sickness absence of all professions in the UK. Chronically poor working conditions are known to impact employees' psychological and physiological health. The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected both the mode and method of work in Social Care and Socia…
To fail or not to fail: Enhancing our understanding of reasons why social work students failed practice placements (2015–2019)
Social Work qualifying programmes teach students the necessary knowledge, skills, and values during a series of taught modules. Formal opportunities to integrate knowledge into practice are provided through practice placements in social work agencies. Each practice placement enables agency and/or academic staff to gate-keep entry into the profession, through assessing student competence against agreed practice learning requirements, readiness to …
How do we prepare students for the challenges of social work? Examples from six countries around the world
In this paper we provide a descriptive comparison of the similarities and differences between social work education at six different universities situated in Australia, England, Finland, Northern Ireland, Sweden, and the United States. The aim was to begin an international conversation by examining the similarities and differences in these examples, around admissions and recruitment processes, professional training, and field practicum to prepare…
A Rapid Review of Reflective Supervision in Social Work
Reflective supervision (RS) is a crucial component of social work practice but little is known about how RS works within the UK context and what the outcomes of RS are for social workers and their service users. A rapid literature review comprised searching four databases for academic and grey literature on the topic of social work RS. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool and the University College London’s literature assessment method were employed …
The Covid-19 Pandemic’s Impact on UK Older People’s Social Workers: A Mixed-Methods Study
The social work profession was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we examined the well-being, working conditions and intentions to leave the social work profession among a sample of UK older people’s social workers. This was a cross-sectional mixed methods study analysing data from 426 social workers who worked in older people’s services in the UK at five time points of the pandemic spanning 2020–2022. Data were collected u…
Working Conditions and Well-Being across the Covid Pandemic in UK Social (Care) Workers
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, social work and social care practitioners had some the worst working conditions of any sector in the UK. During the pandemic, data revealed that social care occupations had higher COVID infection and mortality rates than the general population. The article reports the changing working conditions (measured via the Work-Related Quality of Life scale) and well-being (measured via the Short Warwich–Edinburgh Mental Wel…
The Role of Social Work Education in Relation to Empathy and Self-Reported Resilience: Results from Entry to Exit of Social Work Education on the Island of Ireland during the Covid-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of people’s lives worldwide, including the work of social workers and the education of social work students. Field placements are a significant part of social work education, but during the pandemic they were cut short and most teachings moved online. The current mixed methods study examined the effects of social work education on social work students’ empathy and resilience during the COVID-19 pande…
Social work students on the island of Ireland: A cross-sectional survey
Understanding the characteristics, motivations, and experiences of student social workers is important to inform their professional education and support needs. To date, there has been relatively little research about social work students in Ireland, both North and South. This study reports on an all-Ireland survey of students beginning their social work course in Autumn 2018 in the six Universities delivering social work education. It describes …
An Evaluation of Whole-School Trauma-Informed Training Intervention Among Post-Primary School Personnel: A Mixed Methods Study
Students' ability to reach their potential in school-both behaviourally and academically - is linked to their educator's knowledge of child and adolescent development, childhood adversity and trauma, and how these impact learning and behaviour. However, teacher pre-service training programmes often offer inadequate instruction to meet the needs of trauma-impacted students. The purpose of the study was to investigate the benefits of professional d…
Self-Reported Experiences of Midwives Working in the UK across Three Phases during Covid-19: A Cross-Sectional Study
Maternity services cannot be postponed due to the nature of this service, however, the pandemic resulted in wide-ranging and significant changes to working practices and services. This paper aims to describe UK midwives' experiences of working during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study forms part of a larger multiple phase research project using a cross-sectional design based on an online survey. The online survey used validated psychometric tools …
Mental well-being and quality of working life in UK social workers before and during the Covid-19 pandemic: A propensity score matching study
During the COVID-19 pandemic interest into its potential impact on mental well-being has intensified. Within the social care sector, the pandemic has increased job demands and prolonged stress taking a disproportionate toll on the workforce, particularly social workers. This article compares the mental well-being and quality of working life of social workers in the United Kingdom (UK) before and during the pandemic. Data were collected in 2018 (N…
Global social work working conditions and wellbeing
This research explores the working conditions of social workers around the globe, using a mixed-methods approach. A survey of working conditions and wellbeing was distributed to social workers via email and social media. Results subsequently informed the interview schedule for individual semi-structured interviews with social work leaders from across the world. Results confirm that social workers have among the most difficult working conditions o…
Stressful Events and Adolescent Psychopathology: A Person-Centred Approach to Expanding Adverse Childhood Experience Categories
Stress from cumulative adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can pose a serious risk of experiencing anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders in adolescence. However, there is a paucity of research identifying specific profiles or combinations of exposure to other forms of stressful life events and their impact on adolescent psychopathology. This study attempted a conceptual expansion of the ACE checklist by examining these stressful events. …
Social Worker Well-being: A Large Mixed-Methods Study
Social workers play a vital role in maintaining and improving the lives of the service users that they work with. Despite this, the role is replete with high levels of stress-related sickness absence, turnover intentions and low levels of jobs satisfaction in addition to poor working conditions. This study sought to further investigate working conditions in the UK social workers, as well as the reasons for these working conditions via a mixed-met…
Two sides of one coin? Relationships build resilience or contribute to burnout in child protection social work: Shared perspectives from Leavers and Stayers in Northern Ireland
Child protection is a stressful occupation that can result in burnout and job exit for some social workers. This article will focus on the positive and negative impacts of co-worker and manager relationships, reporting on the meaning applied by workers, and on how these relationships impact their ability to manage the challenges of child protection work. Semi-structured interviews with 15 social-workers who left and 15 who stayed reveal the criti…
Global social work working conditions and wellbeing
This research explores the working conditions of social workers around the globe, using a mixed-methods approach. A survey of working conditions and wellbeing was distributed to social workers via email and social media. Results subsequently informed the interview schedule for individual semi-structured interviews with social work leaders from across the world. Results confirm that social workers have among the most difficult working conditions o…
Explaining Self-Reported Resilience in Child-Protection Social Work: The Role of Organisational Factors, Demographic Information and Job Characteristics
Child-protection social work is a stressful occupation that results in workforce concerns about poor levels of staff retention and high levels of inexperience. This paper presents results from a cross-sectional survey and reports findings from a sample of 162 Northern Irish social workers. The sample were measured for ‘resilience’ (acceptance of self and life and individual competence, RS14 Resilience Scale), ‘burnout’ (emotional exhaustion EE, d…
Mental well-being and quality of working life in UK social workers before and during the Covid-19 pandemic: A propensity score matching study
During the COVID-19 pandemic interest into its potential impact on mental well-being has intensified. Within the social care sector, the pandemic has increased job demands and prolonged stress taking a disproportionate toll on the workforce, particularly social workers. This article compares the mental well-being and quality of working life of social workers in the United Kingdom (UK) before and during the pandemic. Data were collected in 2018 (N…
Clapping for carers in the Covid‐19 crisis: Carers' reflections in a UK survey
This paper reports and discusses the weekly Clapping for Carers - described as 'front-line heroes' that took place across the United Kingdom during the first national lockdown of the coronavirus pandemic. Data are drawn from a UK-wide online survey of health and social care workers, completed in May to July 2020. The survey received 3,425 responses of which 2,541 were analysed; free-text comments were categorised. One question asked specifically:…
The Covid-19 Pandemic’s Impact on UK Older People’s Social Workers: A Mixed-Methods Study
The social work profession was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we examined the well-being, working conditions and intentions to leave the social work profession among a sample of UK older people’s social workers. This was a cross-sectional mixed methods study analysing data from 426 social workers who worked in older people’s services in the UK at five time points of the pandemic spanning 2020–2022. Data were collected u…
Growing Older in Social Work: Perspective on Systems of Support to Extend Working Lives—Findings from a UK Survey
Social work, like many other human service professions, is ageing. This article reports and discusses the findings of a UK social work survey undertaken in 2018 (1,397 responses). It investigated how organisational policies and individual factors were affecting individual social workers’ decisions about working in later life. The survey measured (i) social workers’ attitudes to ageing at work and self-reported planning around retirement; (ii) men…
Systematically Identifying Relevant Research: Case Study on Child Protection Social Workers’ Resilience
Context: The development of a consolidated knowledge base for social work requires rigorous approaches to identifying relevant research. Method: The quality of 10 databases and a web search engine were appraised by systematically searching for research articles on resilience and burnout in child protection social workers. Results: Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) had …
Perceptions of Safe Staffing, Self-Reported Mental Well-being and Intentions to Leave the Profession among UK Social Workers: A Mixed Methods Study
The purpose of this study was to examine social workers’ perceptions of safe staffing levels and correlate these perceptions with standardised measurements of well-being in the UK. This cross-sectional mixed-methods study analysed data from 406 social workers from November 2022 until late January 2023. Data were collected using anonymous online surveys including both qualitative and quantitative methods examining mental well-being, burnout and in…
Commonalities and Differences in Social Work with Learning Disability and Child Protection: Findings from a UK ‘Burnout’ National Survey
Social work with adults with learning disabilities or intellectual disability may be organised as a discrete or specialist area of practice in the UK. Little is known about contemporary social work practitioners’ views of their work with adults with learning disabilities and whether these differ from those of social workers in practice with different user groups or working in other specialities. This paper reports findings from a national survey …
Covid-19 Impact on Children’s Social Work Practice and Social Worker Well-being: A Mixed Methods Study from Northern Ireland and Great Britain during 2020–2022
Social workers were heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we examined the well-being, burnout and work conditions of UK children’s social workers at five time points of the COVID-19 pandemic. This was a cross-sectional mixed methods study analysing data from 1,621 social workers who worked in children’s services in the UK in 2020–2022. Data were collected using anonymous online surveys which included both quantitative and qual…
A baseline survey of levels of motivation, well-being, and employment preferences of newly qualified social workers in the UK
The aim of this study is to examine levels of motivation, wellbeing, and employment preferences of newly qualified social workers who graduated in 2022. A mixed-method study design was employed using standardized measurements for wellbeing, measurable scales for motivation and employment preferences, and qualitative questions about job preferences. The online survey was completed by 176 final-year social work students in Northern Ireland during t…
The Role of Social Work Education in Relation to Empathy and Self-Reported Resilience: Results from Entry to Exit of Social Work Education on the Island of Ireland during the Covid-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of people’s lives worldwide, including the work of social workers and the education of social work students. Field placements are a significant part of social work education, but during the pandemic they were cut short and most teachings moved online. The current mixed methods study examined the effects of social work education on social work students’ empathy and resilience during the COVID-19 pande…
Systematically Identifying Relevant Research: Case Study on Child Protection Social Workers’ Resilience
Context: The development of a consolidated knowledge base for social work requires rigorous approaches to identifying relevant research. Method: The quality of 10 databases and a web search engine were appraised by systematically searching for research articles on resilience and burnout in child protection social workers. Results: Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) had …
Resilience and Burnout in Child Protection Social Work: Individual and Organisational Themes from a Systematic Literature Review
Child protection social work is acknowledged as a very stressful occupation with high turnover and poor retention of staff being a major concern. This paper highlights themes that emerged from findings of 65 articles that were included as part of a systematic literature review. The review focused on the evaluation of research findings, which considered individual and organizational factors associated with resilience or burnout in child protection…
Social Work Under Pressure: How to Overcome Stress, Fatigue and Burnout in the Workplace
Book review: Social Work Under Pressure: How to Overcome Stress, Fatigue and Burnout in the Workplace, by Kate van Heugten, London and Philadelphia, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2011, 224 pp
Commonalities and Differences in Social Work with Learning Disability and Child Protection: Findings from a UK ‘Burnout’ National Survey
Social work with adults with learning disabilities or intellectual disability may be organised as a discrete or specialist area of practice in the UK. Little is known about contemporary social work practitioners’ views of their work with adults with learning disabilities and whether these differ from those of social workers in practice with different user groups or working in other specialities. This paper reports findings from a national survey …
Two sides of one coin? Relationships build resilience or contribute to burnout in child protection social work: Shared perspectives from Leavers and Stayers in Northern Ireland
Child protection is a stressful occupation that can result in burnout and job exit for some social workers. This article will focus on the positive and negative impacts of co-worker and manager relationships, reporting on the meaning applied by workers, and on how these relationships impact their ability to manage the challenges of child protection work. Semi-structured interviews with 15 social-workers who left and 15 who stayed reveal the criti…
Explaining Self-Reported Resilience in Child-Protection Social Work: The Role of Organisational Factors, Demographic Information and Job Characteristics
Child-protection social work is a stressful occupation that results in workforce concerns about poor levels of staff retention and high levels of inexperience. This paper presents results from a cross-sectional survey and reports findings from a sample of 162 Northern Irish social workers. The sample were measured for ‘resilience’ (acceptance of self and life and individual competence, RS14 Resilience Scale), ‘burnout’ (emotional exhaustion EE, d…
Covid-19 impact on social work admissions and education in seven international universities
Inter-country Social Work admissions and educational comparisons are difficult due to variance in policy and practices between Social Work educational providers, even within the same country. However, this paper aims to provide an examination of different levels of impact that COVID-19 ‘lockdown’ had on ‘admissions to social work’ processes and on education, using examples from universities in Australia, England, Finland, Northern Ireland, Norway…
Seeing the Finish Line? Retirement Perceptions and Wellbeing among Social Workers
Planning for future health and social services (HSS) workforces must be informed by an understanding of how workers view their work within the context of their life and the challenges they will face across the course of life. There is a range of policies and provisions that states and organisations can adopt to create sustainable careers, support wellbeing at work, and extend working lives where appropriate, but the potential impact of these poli…
Growing Older in Social Work: Perspective on Systems of Support to Extend Working Lives—Findings from a UK Survey
Social work, like many other human service professions, is ageing. This article reports and discusses the findings of a UK social work survey undertaken in 2018 (1,397 responses). It investigated how organisational policies and individual factors were affecting individual social workers’ decisions about working in later life. The survey measured (i) social workers’ attitudes to ageing at work and self-reported planning around retirement; (ii) men…
Stressful Events and Adolescent Psychopathology: A Person-Centred Approach to Expanding Adverse Childhood Experience Categories
Stress from cumulative adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can pose a serious risk of experiencing anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders in adolescence. However, there is a paucity of research identifying specific profiles or combinations of exposure to other forms of stressful life events and their impact on adolescent psychopathology. This study attempted a conceptual expansion of the ACE checklist by examining these stressful events. …
The Role of Coping in the Wellbeing and Work-Related Quality of Life of UK Health and Social Care Workers during Covid-19
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was declared a global pandemic in early 2020. Due to the rapid spread of the virus and limited availability of effective treatments, health and social care systems worldwide quickly became overwhelmed. Such stressful circumstances are likely to have negative impacts on health and social care workers' wellbeing. The current study examined the relationship between coping strategies and wellbeing and quality o…
Clapping for carers in the Covid‐19 crisis: Carers' reflections in a UK survey
This paper reports and discusses the weekly Clapping for Carers - described as 'front-line heroes' that took place across the United Kingdom during the first national lockdown of the coronavirus pandemic. Data are drawn from a UK-wide online survey of health and social care workers, completed in May to July 2020. The survey received 3,425 responses of which 2,541 were analysed; free-text comments were categorised. One question asked specifically:…
Social Worker Well-being: A Large Mixed-Methods Study
Social workers play a vital role in maintaining and improving the lives of the service users that they work with. Despite this, the role is replete with high levels of stress-related sickness absence, turnover intentions and low levels of jobs satisfaction in addition to poor working conditions. This study sought to further investigate working conditions in the UK social workers, as well as the reasons for these working conditions via a mixed-met…
Social work students on the island of Ireland: A cross-sectional survey
Understanding the characteristics, motivations, and experiences of student social workers is important to inform their professional education and support needs. To date, there has been relatively little research about social work students in Ireland, both North and South. This study reports on an all-Ireland survey of students beginning their social work course in Autumn 2018 in the six Universities delivering social work education. It describes …
An Evaluation of Whole-School Trauma-Informed Training Intervention Among Post-Primary School Personnel: A Mixed Methods Study
Students' ability to reach their potential in school-both behaviourally and academically - is linked to their educator's knowledge of child and adolescent development, childhood adversity and trauma, and how these impact learning and behaviour. However, teacher pre-service training programmes often offer inadequate instruction to meet the needs of trauma-impacted students. The purpose of the study was to investigate the benefits of professional d…
Self-Reported Experiences of Midwives Working in the UK across Three Phases during Covid-19: A Cross-Sectional Study
Maternity services cannot be postponed due to the nature of this service, however, the pandemic resulted in wide-ranging and significant changes to working practices and services. This paper aims to describe UK midwives' experiences of working during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study forms part of a larger multiple phase research project using a cross-sectional design based on an online survey. The online survey used validated psychometric tools …
Mental well-being and quality of working life in UK social workers before and during the Covid-19 pandemic: A propensity score matching study
During the COVID-19 pandemic interest into its potential impact on mental well-being has intensified. Within the social care sector, the pandemic has increased job demands and prolonged stress taking a disproportionate toll on the workforce, particularly social workers. This article compares the mental well-being and quality of working life of social workers in the United Kingdom (UK) before and during the pandemic. Data were collected in 2018 (N…
Global social work working conditions and wellbeing
This research explores the working conditions of social workers around the globe, using a mixed-methods approach. A survey of working conditions and wellbeing was distributed to social workers via email and social media. Results subsequently informed the interview schedule for individual semi-structured interviews with social work leaders from across the world. Results confirm that social workers have among the most difficult working conditions o…
Working conditions and well-being in UK social care and social work during Covid-19
Stress and mental health are among the biggest causes of sickness absence in the UK, with the Social Work and Social Care sectors having among the highest levels of stress and mental health sickness absence of all professions in the UK. Chronically poor working conditions are known to impact employees' psychological and physiological health. The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected both the mode and method of work in Social Care and Socia…
To fail or not to fail: Enhancing our understanding of reasons why social work students failed practice placements (2015–2019)
Social Work qualifying programmes teach students the necessary knowledge, skills, and values during a series of taught modules. Formal opportunities to integrate knowledge into practice are provided through practice placements in social work agencies. Each practice placement enables agency and/or academic staff to gate-keep entry into the profession, through assessing student competence against agreed practice learning requirements, readiness to …
How do we prepare students for the challenges of social work? Examples from six countries around the world
In this paper we provide a descriptive comparison of the similarities and differences between social work education at six different universities situated in Australia, England, Finland, Northern Ireland, Sweden, and the United States. The aim was to begin an international conversation by examining the similarities and differences in these examples, around admissions and recruitment processes, professional training, and field practicum to prepare…
A Rapid Review of Reflective Supervision in Social Work
Reflective supervision (RS) is a crucial component of social work practice but little is known about how RS works within the UK context and what the outcomes of RS are for social workers and their service users. A rapid literature review comprised searching four databases for academic and grey literature on the topic of social work RS. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool and the University College London’s literature assessment method were employed …
The Covid-19 Pandemic’s Impact on UK Older People’s Social Workers: A Mixed-Methods Study
The social work profession was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we examined the well-being, working conditions and intentions to leave the social work profession among a sample of UK older people’s social workers. This was a cross-sectional mixed methods study analysing data from 426 social workers who worked in older people’s services in the UK at five time points of the pandemic spanning 2020–2022. Data were collected u…
Working Conditions and Well-Being across the Covid Pandemic in UK Social (Care) Workers
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, social work and social care practitioners had some the worst working conditions of any sector in the UK. During the pandemic, data revealed that social care occupations had higher COVID infection and mortality rates than the general population. The article reports the changing working conditions (measured via the Work-Related Quality of Life scale) and well-being (measured via the Short Warwich–Edinburgh Mental Wel…
The Role of Social Work Education in Relation to Empathy and Self-Reported Resilience: Results from Entry to Exit of Social Work Education on the Island of Ireland during the Covid-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of people’s lives worldwide, including the work of social workers and the education of social work students. Field placements are a significant part of social work education, but during the pandemic they were cut short and most teachings moved online. The current mixed methods study examined the effects of social work education on social work students’ empathy and resilience during the COVID-19 pande…
Psychology (31 works) · Social Work (28 works) · Political science (26 works) · Social Work Education and Practice (24 works) · Medicine (23 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Social Psychology (16 works) · Public relations (15 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (12 works) · Workforce (12 works)