Rethinking Field Placements for Cultural Relevance

Tina Odu: Hi, my name is Tina Odu.

Eleanor Hogan: My name is Eleanor Hogan. We're social work apprentices pursuing bachelors in social work in the United Kingdom. Welcome to the Decolonised and social work Field Education podcast.

Eleanor Hogan: On my first placement with children and families, I found that when working with Black, Asian and minority ethnic families, I felt out of.

Eleanor Hogan: Debt.

Eleanor Hogan: Almost questioning on what I had as a white British student to tell these families how they should be interacting with their children.

Eleanor Hogan: Due to the cultural differences.

Eleanor Hogan: Tina, we recently started our placement. I'm curious on what your experience has been like.

Tina Odu: For me, Eleanor, I've realised how our placements obviously are a big part of our training, our social workers. But when it comes to some of the approaches we are taught, I feel like they might be a bit rigid sometimes, and although there's increased awareness and cultural sensitivity and inclusivity in the UK.

Tina Odu: And I feel I can see that on policemen, for example in the way.

Tina Odu: Placement lending agreements are being approached. I still feel like there is much more work to be done in rethinking social work, field education or placement for cultural relevance.

Eleanor Hogan: Sometimes it feels like there's this blueprint we're expected to follow, and if it doesn't quite fit this situation or the community, we're left wondering if we're really making an impact.

Tina Odu: Exactly. And that's has got us thinking about how we actually question the models we're taught, like how culturally relevant are they really? And that's what today's episode is all about, where we will address whether we need to and how to rethink field placements.

Tina Odu: To feat diverse cultural.

Tina Odu: Events we want to explore how we can move beyond those one-size-fits-all models and really think about who we're working with and how we're connecting with them.

Eleanor Hogan: We have our host, Doctor Anne Aker, and guest Doctor Carlene Cornish and Zara, Far Kane, a social work student to share their experience with us.

Dr. Anne Anka: Warm welcome to episode 7 of the Decolonizing social Field Education Podcast series. My name is Doctor Anne Anka. I'm associate professor in social work at the University of East Anglia.

Dr. Anne Anka: In England, United Kingdom, my specialist area of practise is social work, with adults safeguarding adults and carers and decolonizing social education. If you are a regular listener to the podcast, it's great to have you with us today.

Dr. Anne Anka: If this is your first time with us, it's great to welcome you to the community of listeners.

Dr. Anne Anka: Literature tells us that decolonizing social work education is driven by historical legacies of colonialism, ordering the marginalisation of minoritized ways of knowing being and doing, and as such, we feel the education is not immune.

Dr. Anne Anka: I'm really pleased to be hosting this episode, which focuses on rethinking field placement for culture relevance with two great colleagues from University of E Anglia, Dr Carlin Cornish and Zara Phakalane.

Dr. Anne Anka: Doctor Carleen, can you please introduce yourself?

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Yes, hi. My name is Doctor Carlene Cornish. I'm associate professor in the School of Social work and I'm originally from Cape Town in South Africa and I arrived in the UK in 2001 to work as a child protection social worker.

Dr. Anne Anka: And Sara, can I invite you to introduce yourself briefly?

Zahra Farkane: Hi, my name is Zahra Farkane. I am a social work student currently doing a bachelor degree at University of East Anglia Norwich. I am originally from Morocco and I rejoined urea as a mature student.

Dr. Anne Anka: Thank you both. It's great to have you with us.

Dr. Anne Anka: Doctor Cornish, can you tell me briefly what the colonising practise education or field education for our international audience means to you?

Dr. Carlene Cornish: It is really important to look at our student placement and our practise education that we provide to our social work trainees and consider whether our current practises of assessment.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Is fit for purpose and gives adequate kind of reflection in terms of how students are.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Able to demonstrate their professional competencies within a particular placement and at the moment.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: To some extent, the current practise models work for are predominantly white British students who understand the local context of which in which placements are happening because they tend to be students who know the local area, who understand British sense of humour.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Who fits the social norm? Because most of these placements are undertaken within predominantly white setting.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: But where it becomes really problematic is that when we have students.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Who are from black, Asian ethnic minorities, backgrounds who come from a culturally rich environment to a university setting where there's a lack of racial representation. There seems to be a gap between understanding what is required to better.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Support students to deal with that culture shock to an extent, and that can take some time. And so with decolonization efforts that's needed within practise education, it is that.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Acknowledgement that for students who are international or students that tend to come from more culturally diverse communities, we as a university and as a as a social profession, we have an obligation to ensure that we level the playing fields to ensure that when students go out on placement, there is a much more.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Fair representation of their capacity.

Dr. Anne Anka: City and try to combat racial discrimination. Yeah. Thank you. That's really powerful to hear. I understand from my experience with you and my working relationship with you that you've developed something, a tool, a module, to help us to practise.

Dr. Anne Anka: In a decolonizing way.

Dr. Anne Anka: What led you to develop this module and then tell us a bit about the module?

Dr. Carlene Cornish: So I have developed a model called SALMONIER. The reason why I designed this model was on the back of my research that I conducted with Black Asian ethnic minorities, mothers, birth mothers in statutory Southwark service.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: What I found through doing my research was that the social work assessments that were done with Black Asian ethnic minorities, both mothers.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Tend to be very harsh, but we seem to have a lack of working knowledge in terms of how to consider.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: The mother within the context of her representation. What I found from working and doing my research with the birth mothers was.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: There was a significant lack of understanding of their harsh realities and when they're supposed to access support section 17, well, welfare support. Sometimes that doesn't necessarily happen for them when the referrals come in. Sometimes that is fast track to section 47 and children then tend to be removed.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: In literature showing and over representation of our black Asian ethnic minorities, children in the welfare system, only the criminal justice system. So with all these things in mind, we needed to think of a different way of working with our people.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Looking at the findings and the fact that the parents were saying they feel unseen, yeah, they felt worthless because they were questioning themselves as what their value as birth mothers, etcetera, all those kind of powerful narratives of inclusion and discrimination inform this model of.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Saul, born now, because what saborna means is soborna is an Afrocentric philosophy, and what it elucidates.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Yes, I see the whole of you. It underscores the importance of seeing the person. So how borner causes you to truly see the person, their needs, their merits, their sorrows, their fears as understanding the person within their sociopolitical and economic realities. And I think this is really important.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Because somebody now causes you to listen to other people without prejudice. I think it's also important to underscore here.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: The reality that Saborna isn't yet to replace British ways of working, but it's to complement.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: There's another approach that needs to be adopted alongside the other models that's been taught, because it centralised the person within their context and it it talks about how she works, professional values of equality.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Empathy, dignity, tolerance and respect.

Dr. Anne Anka: That's very powerful. Thank you.

Dr. Anne Anka: Doctor Cornish mentioned some words are like to explain for our international audience. You mentioned session 47 in the UK context. In child protection we have a common standard. The Children Act 1989 and Section 47 is the duties that low social workers have.

Dr. Anne Anka: In terms of child protection, so just to clarify that, thank you very much. Zara, you've sat in our classrooms and you've heard about decolonizing her decolonizing SUS.

Dr. Anne Anka: Work. How has your personal and professional journey shaped your understanding of decolonizing social practise education?

Zahra Farkane: Yeah. Thank you. And so I sat through Doctor Cornisha's lecture few months ago and the one thing that stuck with me was the Silvana model where it is you see the person entirely rather than.

Zahra Farkane: Just aspects, what they're going through currently. So for example, if someone is in child protection, we should just see them from the context that something bad happened. Now we need to intervene, but we actually fail to see that before that point in time, this person had a rich life, had a cultural community.

Zahra Farkane: Around them had so many things that are going on that their identity is much more complex than that specific time. And in terms of my placement, I'm currently placed with an accompany this asylum seeking children team.

Zahra Farkane: We work with 100% people who are from abroad or young people who are from.

Zahra Farkane: Abroad, so this is.

Zahra Farkane: Very relevant to the context of my placement, there are always cultural differences, but sometimes there there is a kind of a lack.

Zahra Farkane: Of.

Zahra Farkane: Cultural competency or cultural knowledge to understand what a person is trying to communicate.

Zahra Farkane: OK. And just to give a an easy example is when I first moved to the UK, people perceived me as maybe rude when actually quite not rude. It's just the way we speak in my country is very much matter of fact is direct. But there is no yes please and no thank you.

Dr. Anne Anka: Yeah.

Zahra Farkane: It's something I had to adjust to because Doctor, Doctor Cornish earlier said about people who assimilate versus people who don't assimilate as quickly. Someone who assimilates quickly, they won't have an issue because they'll be able to understand the sense of humour. They'll be able to embed themselves within the British cultural context.

Zahra Farkane: Much quicker than somebody who doesn't assimilate. But the issue here is problematized and the person who doesn't assimilate is almost like punishing them for choosing or not even choosing for. Just be in the way that they were raised to be. And this is what they colonise. And field placement means to me. Thank you.

Dr. Anne Anka: So powerful. Thank you for saying that for me. I'm happy to share. So for what do you colonising curriculum means to me and then linking on to what both what you both said, Zara and and Doctor Connors?

Dr. Anne Anka: Is about the isolation that someone in my classroom might feel the isolation and the loneliness just because they can't communicate when they own placement.

Dr. Anne Anka: And then listening to the human stories about.

Dr. Anne Anka: What it means to that person? It's not about the behaviour that the person is representing, but it's about what challenges us and it's about a way of changing the way that we work to make, practise more inclusive, and that's what decolonizing means. Means is that the heartfelt pain that someone might go through.

Dr. Anne Anka: Just because the ways of knowing is different. So thank you for that.

Dr. Anne Anka: So my next question is for Doctor.

Dr. Anne Anka: And Zara, you can come in. So what does a supportive learning environment look like on placement considering that for a black, Asian and minority student facing challenges of racism? Yeah.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Thank you very much for that question. So I'm going to draw on the research we've just recently completed.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Across faculty research with regards to social work, education and Health Sciences, the first thing we need to recognise is for international students, for example, who join our universities.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: They have made huge personal sacrifices to come over to to be successful in their studies. They have uprooted their life, often their family, and so having to succeed is one of the driving motivators for them. What the research has found is some of these students.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: I've never experienced racism before. If you were back to as educators to supervising an international student and they reporting, or did they describe?

Dr. Carlene Cornish: And what sounds like microaggressions, it's important that we help students to name and identify that, firstly because that is part of the education that needs to take place on practise, education and then other important thing is to challenge racism on behalf of the student.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Not expecting students to deal with racism, and this is what our research found, is that some practise educators.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Believe that by an empowering students in supervision and telling them how to confront a particular situation that is the end of their responsibilities. But I think that is very short sighted because it's overlooking the reality that when students are.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: On in practise education, the power inequalities is enormous because that student knows that within that particular placement.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: They don't want to upset anyone. They don't want to file, so we can't send a student back into a placement or on home visits where they're going to use experience, racial trauma. And I think the other thing is to more or less acknowledge is that some of us like Asian ethnic minority students, may not have had a diagnosis for disabilities.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Because there could be cultural taboos, so there's complexity for the practise educator because sometimes their supervising students, who may have undiagnosed learning needs. But there's no reasonable adjustments. Yeah, made for them in that regard. So varies. The support varies and.

Dr. Anne Anka: Yeah.

So.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: And the other thing that we do need to acknowledge that there's a curriculum difference in of knowledge because.

Yes.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Various students, international students.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: They have been trained in sometimes community work related modules like anthropology. Those are valuable kind of modules that can.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Help complement the focus on the ecological approach. It's almost like we expect students to park that knowledge, but we need to integrate that knowledge because that foundational knowledge will enhance their assessment. The curriculum differences can create a great shock for our students, and that can delay their capacity to really.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Reorientate their cognition and their knowledge of social practise.

Dr. Anne Anka: I just want to mention something about differences in curriculum and differences, ways of teaching and their impact. So for example, my background, I've come from Ghana originally and and the way of teaching is different and the way of expectation of writing is also different. So in that context we read about a book by a professor.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: OK.

Dr. Anne Anka: You memorise that and then you write, and that's what knowledge, knowledge creation is all about.

Dr. Anne Anka: In UK context you read about something you critically reflect about that and then you write about that, challenging what you prefer to have said.

Dr. Anne Anka: Quick analysis.

Dr. Anne Anka: Might not be used to other people from coming from abroad, and that can cause someone to fail. So again, learning about the ways of teaching from other continent and in the ways of practising and then building on that knowledge is what I see about what decolonizing the curriculum means to me.

Zahra Farkane: I was just going to draw on what Doctor Cornish said, something about power imbalance about students being afraid to report any issues when it comes to placement and that is I think it's a key point in particularly in the context of international students, because I feel that the power imbalance in Internet with international students.

Zahra Farkane: Placement.

Zahra Farkane: It has got so many other layers. It's not only that I'm afraid, it's not for me, but I just give an example. It's not only that the student is afraid to fail the placement, but if they are in the UK on a visa, on a student visa, that's potentially a visa, they paid so much money for, there's a lot of help from their families. There's a lot of expectation.

Zahra Farkane: It's it can have a knock on effect, so the students might be reluctant to report any experiences of, like microaggression or racism or placement and.

Zahra Farkane: The question is, how can this power imbalance between the students and all the educational systems around them, including placement?

Zahra Farkane: How can we?

Zahra Farkane: Balance that again because I've I have friends who have experienced microaggression on placement, but they felt too afraid to challenge it.

Dr. Anne Anka: Yeah, it shouldn't happen. It shouldn't happen at all. Yeah.

Dr. Anne Anka: Addressing white fragility in social work.

Dr. Anne Anka: How does white fragility impact?

Dr. Anne Anka: Conversations on race and racism in social work, education and practise, and what strategies can we employ to address this constructively?

Zahra Farkane: Often times you find that when you challenge the microaggression, the person turns it down or turns it back to you. For example, they just say how dare you? Are you calling me racist? And then that brings a huge plethora of problems in itself because now.

Zahra Farkane: Instead of you being the victim now you are a perpetrator. Now you are someone who is accusing someone of an extremely serious.

Zahra Farkane: And most of the time, it can actually turn into just more of what we call like a gas lighting situation. Whereas I was just joking or I didn't mean it that way and you understood it wrong. And sometimes it can make you question yourself. It just gets really muddy. It's just, yeah, the white fragility is extremely.

Zahra Farkane: Damaging for people of colour on placement.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Thank you. Yeah. And I think it would be so much easier, wouldn't it, Zara, if there are other white calling?

Dr. Anne Anka: Yeah.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Who in that moment had if they've seen the same thing happening, actually could say yes, but she's not imagining it. You have done this because sometimes you do. You can sometimes second guess yourself. So having colleagues who are racially literate and are confident enough to speak.

Dr. Anne Anka: Uh, not in a confrontational way, but it's about, like, just let's do better be culturally sensitive, be culturally appropriate. That would be very helpful. I've come across some papers previously about people. The word just escaped me. I think it's about something labour.

Dr. Anne Anka: Emotional labour, emotional labour. So why colleagues who usually stands up against us? So we've got allies. We need to be. We have.

Dr. Anne Anka: Boys too. But why colleagues who use your sunset talks about emotional labour and then black colleagues who also signs up auto talks about emotional labour. So again, you're going through your own pain. Then you have to also absorb someone else's pain. Some of the strategies that I use, I don't know whether that's right or wrong, about using perspective talking.

Dr. Anne Anka: Perspective talking. So for me to understand where that person's coming from and then where I'm coming from and then coming together to find a way through. Yeah. Thank you.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: When it comes to also the saborna model in terms of student placement, I'd like to also mention you know what, because I think there there's also a lack of understanding in terms of how the student is seeing replacement, so.

Dr. Anne Anka: Ohh, thank you. Yeah, I'm glad that you mentioned it because I was gonna go into my last question. So do you wanna add the body, the relationship between the sabona module and the? Yeah. Thank you. I think it's really important that when we think of the soulburner model in terms of student placement.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Yeah. And so.

Yeah.

Dr. Anne Anka: Fill the educational.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: I've designed a framework that guide people in terms of how they can use and ask questions to better support. So with the saborna framework for example, the S stand for C, so one of the columns talk about seeing the student as a whole person within their wider social, economic, political, spiritual.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: And cultural realities, because we can't just see students as academic and professional beings.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: We need to.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: More less understand the lived realities through intersectional dynamic.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: And how that impact their year and now experiences so that in that particular column the practise educator is encouraged to ask the student questions around their social circumstances, just literally asking students. So how have you been? How's your, how's your weekend been something like that. So that you can get an understanding.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: If the person is socially isolated, or whether the student have some form of social support around them, yeah, acknowledge I stand for acknowledge. So acknowledge the culture shock and the sensitivity of the situation W stands for.

Dr. Anne Anka: Yes.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Yes, recognising the student words and letting the student know that you are valuing their words and create creating opportunity for them to feel valued, important and useful. Use and for unique they are unique people, so we can't just teach students on the memory of dealing with another black.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: African Nigerian student.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: B stands for bear with the student because English may not be their first language, so they do need time because we have accent this jargon, this slang, there's humour. All of that can complicate the extent to which people are able to process information or stand for opportunities.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: About creating opportunities in supervision for respectful and mutual exchange of knowledge and ideas.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Without the student fearing judgement and for negotiate. So you negotiate, you don't just impose your supervisory authority over the student, but you're allowing space for the students to provide input. During practise education, you're keeping your power in check, so making sure that students have a voice. And lastly, I stand for available.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Making yourself available because the student matters. Let your daddy reflect your availability. You have to become emotionally available and truly engages with the students emotion.

Dr. Anne Anka: Thank you. That's really powerful. We talked about some really difficult. We had the difficult conversations about the impact of racism and and everything. And I wanna earn on aspiration for decolonizing practise learning. So I'm gonna invite you now as we wrap up. Zara, can you tell us about your favourite song?

Dr. Anne Anka: That kind of sum up your aspiration for decolonizing social practise learning and how it should be.

Zahra Farkane: One thing that comes to mind is redemption song by Bob Marley. I really like Bob Marley generally and I just love the. I feel that Bob Marley and Doctor Cornish are working on similar projects, which is to have the Afrocentric approach to working with people.

Eleanor Hogan: Yeah.

OK.

Zahra Farkane: Or supporting students from ethnic minorities to actually understand their perspectives rather than just constantly perceive them negatively for no reason.

Dr. Anne Anka: Thank you. Very nice. Thank you. Yeah, we'll buy you. Doctor Cornish. Yeah. Song.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: I don't have a song, sorry, but what I do know for me, The Lion King. It's just that songs through that the movie Lion King, those are very powerful. I often cry when I watch The Lion King and I sing in terms of songs. Just literally our national anthem in South Africa, in my view, is very powerful.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Because when we sing the.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: National anthem, which is in causes. Ukulele Africa sort of starts in African and it's a prayer that that's been sung, but it's at some stage. We then switch over and we sing in Afrikaans, the language of the oppressor. And we also sing in English where everyone.

Dr. Anne Anka: Yeah.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Can understand those languages and I think in that.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: National anthem.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: As you move from one language to the other, it shows integration and a cultural appreciation for all of us with the bow nation, we've got 11 official kind of languages, but we all work together. It comes together in, in that national anthem. And so in Corsica, Africa for me he's very powerful.

Dr. Anne Anka: And yeah, that is what we should be striving. We should be integrating model. Yeah. Thank you. You summed it up really nicely for us. Yeah, I like to take the opportunity to thank you, Doctor Cornish and Zara, for the opportunity to share your perspective on what do you.

Dr. Anne Anka: Analysing means to you focusing back on the theme for this podcast about rethinking.

Dr. Anne Anka: Field placement in the Court for cultural relevance. So thank you both.

Zahra Farkane: Thank you, Doctor Anko.

Dr. Carlene Cornish: Thank you, Doctor Anko.

Tina Odu: I found this orbital model to be very powerful and I think this resembles the intersectional approach with UNI which explores unique experiences of discrimination and.

Tina Odu: Village and Doctor Cornish said the sewer burner model is not meant to replace existing models but to complement them.

Eleanor Hogan: I think having a social work student on the podcast really help to show how models are used in practise and really bring the classroom teachings to life. Yeah, I agree. I think for me being a white British student, I'll never be able to fully understand the experiences of black, Asian minority ethnic families that.

Eleanor Hogan: I supported during my placement. However, with using the model I can begin to start understanding the life experiences of the families I support.

Eleanor Hogan: You've been listening to the Decolonising social work Field Education podcast, global dialogues for change, and International participatory project with students, experts by experience, practitioners, and academics funded by the European Association of Schools of Social Work.

Eleanor Hogan: That by associate Professor Hang Leanne Lisa Chen at the University of Sussex and Co, produced by Mitali Kulkarni, visit dialogue.swfe.org.

Eleanor Hogan: And follow us online.

Eleanor Hogan: Decolonise and social work starts with you. Stay tuned.