Group 1
A. Provision of information about placements
B. Setting up the physical environment
The discussion within the group ranged over both of these areas with group members commenting on their particular experiences of how such matters are dealt with.
One group member felt that in her experience students were normally good at disclosing information, which helped greatly in setting up a suitable placement for them. However, experience from a practice teacher in another agency was that while information had been disclosed by the student this did not appear to have been taken into account when matching the placement and the information took some time to be passed to the practice teacher.
There was a feeling that students (particularly from outlying areas) were not always made sufficiently aware by University staff of the fact that journeys to placements would in most cases require more than one bus or train.
The experience of most, if not all, of the group was that there are very few buildings that do not have accessibility problems of some kind. As a result, some care has to be taken in matching students to placements and the need for information from students of their needs is going to continue.
The experience of some disabled students appears to be that placement preparation and support vis-a-vis their needs was much better than what they subsequently experienced as newly qualified workers.
The support and equipment etc., which is provided by Universities for students on placement was felt to be very helpful although there was a concern to ensure that equipment (particularly software) was compatible with whatever was used within the agency.
The group felt that it would be important to feed into the consultation process on the
intended Code of Practice and to clarify matters around placement provision. It was
recognised that the legal status of the Consortium might be an issue in this.