Welcome

A team-based peer learning approach

This SWOTT toolkit has been designed to assist social workers to complete relevant and evidence-informed continuous professional development (CPD) using a team-based approach. Each themed toolkit offers flexible and accessible CPD activity, through short bursts of activity, recognising that there are multiple everyday demands and time constraints on practitioners. The design reflects the formal requirements for social workers to engage in professional development and learning as part of their annual registration requirements and for social workers in England, this includes peer reflection. 

Completion of a SWOTT toolkit requires practitioners to learn individually and then consolidate that learning by applying it through group discussion and reflection. The team-based peer learning approach is embedded into the design of every SWOTT toolkit. A team approach places importance on relationships and acknowledges that individuals are embedded within their social context. This means that an individual’s capacity for growth and change is always influenced by their relationships and the social systems in which they exist and the wider processes that affect them. [1]

Rogers, M. and Allen, D. (2021) An A-Z of Social Work Skills. London: Sage

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02615479.2023.2266467

A team-based approach always offers parity in CPD activity across a group of practitioners.

Working individually to acquire new knowledge and then apply it as a group, to apply that learning as a team, requires engagement with a group of peers to exchange knowledge, as well as contribute to shared problem-solving, hypothesising and decision-making. This design has been fully evaluated in a pilot project. [2]Rogers, M., Joubert, M., Cunnington, C. & Bosworth, D. (2023) The Social Work Online Team Training (SWOTT) Toolkit:  Embedding team-based peer learning in continuous professional development. … Continue reading Benefits described in the evaluation included: 

  • the ability to refresh knowledge of core theory (e.g., the ladder of participation, or social ecological model);
  • the opportunity to acquire new theoretical and evidence-informed knowledge; 
  • the ability to undertake up-to-date, research-informed training; 
  • the opportunity to apply learning from the online training to a case study; and
  • engagement in peer group reflection enabling deep discussion and shared learning.

Completion of the SWOTT requires:

  • team members to talk and listen to each other in a space (or succession of spaces) dedicated to a task or activity. This means that preliminary thinking may need to happen before a group reflection;
  • tool for understanding the problem or issue, and in each SWOTT toolkit, this ‘tool’ is in the form of a complex case study.
  • a dedicated space for group reflection and for offering and engaging in peer feedback (reflecting on current practice) and peer feedforward (thinking ahead and reflecting on future practice). 

As learners you need to be:

  • reflective (thinking about your practice – including how your beliefs, values and attitudes, as well as theory and research, influence everyday decisions and actions – and how you might do things differently); and
  • reflexive (thinking analytically about how power is distributed in the everyday social and relational context of practice).

Completing a SWOTT toolkit

Each toolkit is themed, research-informed and comprised of two learning activities:

  1. Learning 1 (L1): an online module that should be completed on an individual basis (offering new knowledge and preliminary thinking);
  2. Learning 2 (L2): a complex case study (a tool for understanding and application of new knowledge) to be completed in group supervision (a space for reflection).

Facilitators (e.g., team managers, advanced practitioners or workforce development leads) enable completion of the SWOTT toolkit by setting the time period by which social workers should complete L1. Completion of L1 will take 60-90 minutes. This means that the time demand is not too great and it can be fitted into the working day, or it can be completed in chunks if preferred. 

Facilitators will set a date for the peer reflective discussion or group supervision or another learning event (L2) which will take a minimum of 1 hour.  Each SWOTT toolkit integrates two opportunities for CPD reflections; on L1 and L2. Facilitators should build in time at the end of L2, peer reflective supervision, to enable all participants to write their reflections and update their CPD portfolio.

Toolkits are accessed via the tab at the top of this page through subscription only.

For more information

Contact Dr Michaela Rogers, Senior Lecturer in Social Work, Department of Sociological Studies, the University of Sheffield. Email: m.rogers@sheffield.ac.uk

References

References
1

Rogers, M. and Allen, D. (2021) An A-Z of Social Work Skills. London: Sage

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02615479.2023.2266467

2 Rogers, M., Joubert, M., Cunnington, C. & Bosworth, D. (2023) The Social Work Online Team Training (SWOTT) Toolkit:  Embedding team-based peer learning in continuous professional development. Social Work Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2023.2266467