Factors That Impact a Social Worker's Capacity to Supervise a Student.

With sector constraints and higher education economic imperatives increasingly impacting the provision of social work field education, university programs lack an understanding of the factors that enable or prohibit field educators' capacity to provide placements. Despite the significance of field education in the curriculum, it remains unclear what the experiences and motivations of field educators are to provide universities with student placements. This research addresses this gap through surveying 101 field educators that attended statewide Victorian field education training. Results indicated that although field educators recognised the benefits of supervising students, workload relief, additional training, and further student placement preparation by the university were emphasised as the primary factors that would enable them to respond positively to placement requests. Payments for placements did not necessarily ameliorate these issues nor guarantee the provision of more placements. The implications of these findings for universities and the field are discussed. It is important for social work field educators to provide voice to the factors that enable or inhibit their capacity to provide supervised student placements and participate in research to highlight the benefits and challenges of their role. Workload relief and greater student placement preparation were identified by field educators as the biggest factor that would increase the likelihood they could provide a supervised student placement. The impact of payment for placement arrangements requires further examination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]