The enhanceR2P team gave a presentation on project progress at the Massey University, Social Work in Changing Times conference on Friday the 18th of November 2016,

1. +
Enhancing the Readiness to Practise of NQSWs
in Aotearoa New Zealand

2. +
Project team
 Neil Ballantyne, Senior Lecturer, the Open Polytechnic of New
Zealand.
 Dr. Liz Beddoe, Associate Professor of Social Work , University of
Auckland.
 Dr. Kathryn Hay, Senior Lecturer, Massey University.
 Dr. Jane Maidment, Associate Professor of Social Work, University of
Canterbury.
 Shayne Walker, Senior Lecturer, University of Otago
 Liz Ngan (Research Assistant)

3. +Issues for social work education in
Aotearoa New Zealand
 Vocal government and stakeholder
critique of readiness to practise based on
anecdote and opinion.
 New challenges to employers in the form
of government social service and CYF
reforms.
 Lack of clarity regarding capability of
NQSWs and capabilities at other points in
the career journey.
 Little dialogue between TEIs and other
stakeholders about educational issues.
 To create a map of the content of the social
work curriculum.
 To discover the perceptions of students,
educators, managers and service users.
 To collaborate in the production of a
capabilities framework with clear
expectations for the social work
curriculum.
 To enable TEIs to graduate NQSWs who
are confident, capable and ready to
practise.
The problem The opportunity

4. +
Critique of social work education
“CYF reports that many new graduates they employ lack the
required level of knowledge of child protection, youth justice,
child development,mental health, addictions and family violence.
This means new social workers need to learn these skills on the
job.”
(Children’s Commissioner, 2015, p.34)

5. +
Project aims
Develop a Professional Capabilities
Framework clarifying the capabilities of
newly qualified social workers (NQSWs) and
social workers at experienced, advanced
and expert levels of practice.

6. +
Project research questions
 What is the content of the current Aotearoa New Zealand
social work curriculum and how does it relate to the SWRB
core competencies?
 How well prepared are NQSWs to enter professional social
work practice and how is their learning being supported and
enhanced in the workplace?
 What professional capabilities, including cultural
capabilities, should we expect of NQSWs and of social
workers working at experienced, advanced and expert
levels of practice?

7. +
Three ways of thinking about
curriculum
The
Learned
Curriculum
The Taught
Curriculum
The
Declared
Curriculum
Documentary analysis
Student focus groupsEducator focus group

8. +
Creating TISWEANZ
 Seventeen TEIs run 22 social work programmes in NZ
 Fourteen TEIs (82%) are participating and between them
they offer19 (86%) of programmes
 We have collated over 400 individual course descriptors
 Analysis has produce a draft taxonomy of 581 terms
including equivalent terms (USE/UF), hierarchical terms
(BT/NT) and associative terms (RT)

9. +
TISWEANZ: Candidate terms
 Risk (10)
 protective factors (4)
 risk assessment (29)
 risk factors (2)
 risk indicators (6)
 risk management (12)
 risk prevention (3)
 Human development (24)
 child development (8)
 adolescence (5)
 adulthood (5)
 biological development (8)
 cognitive development (8)
 emotional development (4)
 moral development (1)
 physical development (9)
 psychosocial development (4)

10. +
2017: phase 2:
Assess the readiness to practise of NQSWs
 Write a literature scan of literature relevant to the readiness to practise
of NQSWs.
 Conduct an online survey of all NQSWs and their managers who have
been in post-qualifying practice for between six months and one year.
 Interview a sample of NQSW students and their managers to assess
perceived readiness to practise.
 Conduct focus groups of service users to assess perceived readiness
to practise of NQSWs.
 Write a report on the readiness to practise of NQSW’s in New Zealand

11. +
Questions?
 Contact Neil and Liz:
 neil.ballantyne@openpolytechnic.ac.nz
 e.beddoe@auckland.ac.nz