Educating Professionals: Practice Learning in Health and Social Care

How do health and social care professionals learn their practice? What can the professions learn from each other? This book offers a comprehensively written account of the recent organizational and conceptual changes in UK practice education. Using case examples, the authors focus on the experiences of students' learning in practice settings: how this is organized, what methods are used to help students learn their trade and how their abilities are assessed. The book offers separate chapters on nine professions, all by authors well-established in writing about practice-based learning in their field. They present an exploration in areas of similarity and difference in expertise and outlook between professions, whilst introducing the general concepts that translate between professions. This book will be of great interest to academics and professional in the fields of health studies and social work.

Mark Doel is Research Professor of Social Work at Sheffield Hallam University, England. He is co-editor of Groupwork Journal and the author of many books on practice teaching and learning, groupwork and task-centred practice, including (with Steven M. Shardlow) Modern Social Work Practice (Ashgate 2005). He has directed a university undergraduate social work programme, and has fourteen years' experience as a practice teacher (student supervisor), working in a variety of social work settings, including the United States. Steven M. Shardlow is Professor of Social Work at the University of Salford, England and is Professor II at BodA﹐ University College, Norway. He is Director of Salford Centre for Social Work Research and edits the Journal of Social Work. He is the co-author (with Mark Doel) of Modern Social Work Practice (Ashgate 2005). Previously, he has directed a university postgraduate social work programme; managed a multi-disciplinary team of health and social care practitioners, and practised as a field and residential social worker.