Skip to main content

Bournemouth University

BU Research Blog

Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University

  • Home
  • RDS Team
    • Faculty-Facing Staff
    • Funding Development Team
    • Project Delivery Team
    • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team
  • Clinical Governance @ BU
  • Research Ethics @ BU
  • REF 2021
    • BU REF 2021 Code of Practice
    • Declaration of Staff Circumstances
    • BU’s Unit of Assessment Teams
    • REF FAQs
    • Archive – REF 2014
      • BU REF 2014 Code of Practice
      • REF 2014 Frequently Asked Questions
        • REF 2014 Overview
        • Staff eligibility
        • Mock REF 2014 (REF preparation) exercises at BU
        • REF 2014 Assessment of outputs
        • REF 2014 Staff selection
        • REF 2014 Equality and diversity
  • Impact
    • Partnerships & collaborations
    • Working with businesses
      • Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF)
    • Communicating your research
    • Influencing policy makers
    • Public engagement
      • Quick guide to public engagement
    • Student engagement
      • Stages of engagement
      • Case study: Sean Beer
      • Case study: James Gavin
      • Case study: Anna Feigenbaum
  • Research Toolkit
  • Research Lifecycle
  • Policy
  • PGR
    • The Doctoral College Team

October 29, 2014

Participation in regional and national conferences provides challenging learning opportunities for BU social work students

BU research, Public engagement, student research Jonathan Parker

In October, Michelle Lillywhite and Karen Sampson, final year students on the BA Social Work programme at Bournemouth University attended two conferences, one organised by a local charity working with adult survivors of childhood abuse Dorset Action on Abuse (DAA) and the second organised by British Association of Social Workers (BASW) in conjunction with the Northern School of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy.

DAA, who offer support groups and one to one counselling for adult survivors, held their annual conference in Boscombe, Dorset. The theme of the conference was supporting people who have been sexually abused though the criminal justice system and how this can effect the working relationship between practitioners and survivors, alongside the personal impact of this work on practitioners. Speaking on the day were representatives from both the local Dorset police’s Child Protection Unit Senior Investigating Officer, John Merrick and Julia Woodward, Senior Crown Chief Prosecutor, from the Crown Prosecution Service Wessex.

The questions from the floor about when the police ‘believe’ a victim were answered with a refreshingly honest account of a police investigator who explained their role isn’t to believe but to build a case with evidence that has a ‘high chance of conviction’. We felt, however, that it is the role for the social worker/counsellor to offer this trust, belief and acceptance of the victim and that the police had a very different, more process-led role within the journey of criminal proceedings. This provided us with significant insights into the differences between professions engaged in the same kind of work with people.

The support that DAA offer people within the local community through these difficult and challenging processes was a continual theme in the personal account shared offered of a survivor’s journey through the criminal justice system which for them resulted in a conviction and ‘validation’ that the horrific abuse they endured was wrong.

It showed us though that while the triumph of a conviction is a positive thing the essence of the entrenched abuse and the victims’ mind-set resulting from their experiences is not so easily eradicated. An important lesson for us as trainee practitioners was that even though we see that justice has been done it does not mean that ‘closure’ can ever really be attained; something we will remember.

The national BASW conference, held in Leeds, was entitled ‘Unsticking the stuck’ and based on a live supervision session with a willing volunteer. The facilitator demonstrated to us how we, as practitioners, can get ‘stuck’ within a case by not concentrating on the most important aspect: understanding and working towards the needs of the client.

In this scenario, the delegates comprised a good mix of students, like us, and more experienced and qualified practitioners who dealt with complex cases – something we aspire to do once qualified!

The initial expectation of the day was that we would come away with some therapeutic interventions to add to our ‘toolkit’ before undertaking our practice placement. However, this was not the case, rather the day prompted an exploration into the meaning and importance of supervision for us as practitioners. I think as well being able to understand and get to grips with a real case and not just a case study the conference gave our discussions on the day more credence and depth as this was a real situation, laced with complexity. It introduced us to something, unfortunately, ever prevalent within our society.

Attending external conferences gives us, as trainee practitioners, the ability to step outside of our comfort zone – the classroom – and explore our knowledge, experiences and natural instincts of working with an increased understanding of complexity. Crucially, this gives us the opportunity to gain insight into the remit and responsibilities of other practitioners which can only strengthen our awareness of the importance of today’s multi-agency working. It creates an understanding of working strategies and thinking outside the box plus the opportunity to network, share ideas and in these cases add something to our ‘personal toolkit’ as future practitioners.

Michelle Lillywhite & Karen Sampson

Social work students

Tags: social science social work

Related Posts

  • Child Protection in a time of Austerity – The National Centre for Post-Qualifying Social WorkMay 14, 2013
  • BU presenters at Joint World Conference on Social Work, Education and Social Development, Melbourne, AustraliaJuly 17, 2014
  • Critical thinking and professional judgement for social workDecember 7, 2011
  • Problematising Values, Ethics and Assessment: Research seminars to ENABLE good social work practicesJune 27, 2014

BU staff can login below:

Other services

Don’t miss a post!

Subscribe for the BU Research Digest, delivered freshly every day.


 

Recent posts

BU research Funding opportunities EU
  • NIHR Grant Applications Seminar ONLINE – 7th July 2022May 26, 2022
  • Online impact workshops: 8 – 9 JuneMay 25, 2022
  • New research paper published by PhD student Hina TariqMay 24, 2022
  • REF 2021 staff engagement sessions – find out more about our submission and strategyMay 23, 2022
  • SETS seminar – ideas and future collaborations welcomeMay 23, 2022
  • Preparing for ERASMUS+ exchange to NepalMay 21, 2022
  • NIHR Grant Applications Seminar ONLINE – 7th July 2022May 26, 2022
  • New Impact Accelerator Programme for ESSMay 24, 2022
  • UKRO Subscription Services for BU Academics and StaffMay 23, 2022
  • EU Funding News, May 2022May 17, 2022
  • RDS Funding Development Briefing – Wed. 11/05/22May 9, 2022
  • Research Professional – all you need to knowMay 3, 2022
  • UKRO Subscription Services for BU Academics and StaffMay 23, 2022
  • EU Funding News, May 2022May 17, 2022
  • COST actions – European Cooperation in Science and TechnologyMarch 24, 2022
  • HE policy update for the w/e 18th March 2022March 21, 2022
  • Good UK – Horizon Europe NewsMarch 15, 2022
  • EU funding related events – March / April 2022March 14, 2022

Search by Category

Search by popular post topics

AHRC Brexit BRIAN BU research clinical research CMMPH collaboration collaborative research conference congratulations Edwin-blog-post ESRC EU Europe event Events Festival of Learning funding funding opportunities Fusion Fusion Investment Fund Health horizon 2020 HSC impact innovation knowledge exchange media midwifery Nepal nhs NIHR open access Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen publication public engagement publishing ref research Research Councils research professional RKE development framework social sciences training widening participation

RSS Research Information Network

  • Physical Sciences Case studies: information use and discovery
  • Information handling in collaborative research: an exploration of five case studies
  • Information literacy monitoring and evaluation
  • Data centres: their use, value and impact
  • Heading for the open road: costs and benefits of transitions in scholarly communications

RSS UKRI

Browse all our categories
  • Awarded & submitted bids
  • BRIAN
  • BU Challenges
  • BU research
  • BU2025
  • Business Engagement
  • Centre for Excellence in Learning
  • Clinical Governance
  • Coffee Morning
  • conferences
  • COVID-19
  • data management
  • Delicious links
  • Doctoral College
  • ECR Network
  • EPSRC
  • ESRC
  • EU
  • Events
  • Featured
  • Featured academics
  • Festival of Learning
  • Friday profile
  • Funding opportunities
  • Fusion
  • Fusion Investment Fund
  • Fusion themes
  • Global engagement
  • Grants Academy
  • Guidance
  • hate crime
  • HEIF
  • HSS Our 9 Research Entities
  • humanities
  • Impact
  • Industry collaboration
  • Info Days
  • innovation
  • international
  • Knowledge Exchange
  • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team
  • Knowledge Transfer
  • Knowledge Transfer Partnership
  • News from the PVC
  • nhs
  • NHS
  • open accecss
  • open access
  • parliament
  • Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
  • PG research
  • policy
  • Post-award
  • Postgraduate Research
  • pre-award
  • Public engagement
  • Publishing
  • R & KE Operations
  • REF Subjects
  • Research assessment
  • Research Centres
  • Research communication
  • Research Concordat
  • Research Ethics
  • Research Integritiy
  • research integrity
  • Research news
  • research opportunities
  • research staff
  • Research Supervision
  • Research themes
  • Research Training
  • RKE development framework
  • staff profile pages
  • Strategic Investment Areas
  • Student Engagement
  • student research
  • the conversation
  • Training
  • UKRI
  • Uncategorized
  • Vitae
  • Women's Academic Network
  • writing
  • Twitter

© Bournemouth University 2022. All rights reserved.

  • Charitable status
  • Website privacy & cookies
  • Copyright and terms of use