| Popis: |
The safety and quality of care for Australia's rapidly growing ageing population is highly dependent on a skilled and competent human service workforce, and social workers have an important and emerging role to play within this space. Older Australians experience a multitude of complex and diverse care needs within their communities and other care settings. Within these contexts, the critical role of social workers cannot be underestimated, considering the evolving expectations of service users, their families, and carers as well as the local community. With such dynamics, exploring social workers' preparedness to work with older people becomes imperative and a policy priority. This report presents findings based on a qualitative pilot research project that explored social work students' preparedness to work with older people in NSW- Australia. The research also explored faculty perspectives on students' preparedness to work with older people. Preparedness in this research was contextualised as Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice (KAP). The research is a response to the Commonwealth Government 's aged care Workforce Strategy – A Matter of Care (2018), that calls for attention within the undergraduate training programs to ensure that they address current and future competencies and skills requirements for the sector. This is well-aligned with the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety recommendation 76 (2a). Several themes about enablers and constraints to social work students' preparedness emerged from in-depth interviews with seven final year undergraduate social work students, and five faculty who teach and coordinate subjects within the social work degree. Overall, the role of students' knowledge, attitude, perception, curriculum design, pedagogical practices, field placement opportunities were underscored as imperative in shaping preparedness to work with older people. |
