ThursdayThunking

ISSN 2516-3078

Running bi-monthly, ThursdayThunking* is a series of thought-provoking articles will offer information, insight and ideas... and maybe cause you to rethink the way you view things. Our goal is to stimulate thinking, improve practice and provide a critical backdrop for ongoing debate.

* Yes, it's a real word! Thunking: the act of thinking deeply and/or for long periods of time.

If you'd be interested in writng an article for ThursdayThunking, we'd be delighted to hear from you. Have a look at our guidance notes and then get in touch.

Metaphors of Resilience

Metaphors of Resilience

This month’s Thursday Thunking article is by PhD student, former social worker and independent practice educator, Sarah Rose. Sarah is just completing a PhD interviewing social workers to explore their understanding  and experience of emotional resilience in relation to their role. Sarah has previously adapted this research into practice knowledge and skills promoting resilience for practice educators via the Just Keep On Practice Educating workshops, hosted by Learning Network West in collaboration with Glasgow Caledonian University. In this article, Sarah reflects on the particular metaphors used by social workers in the research and discusses how they may illuminate our understanding of emotional resilience in relation to the social work role.
Read More

“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today”

Aidan Martin, a student social worker, shares some of his techniques of visualisation.
Read More

Relationship-based practice: keeping the ‘heart’ in practice

Sarah McCulloch reminds us that a relationship-based approach is collaborative, not confrontational, congruent, respectful and not indulgent or neglectful and essentially it is kind.
Read More

Service user and carer representation: exploring barriers to participation

In this month's ThursdayThunking, Sian Lucas from Stirling University explores Service User and Carer involvement in social work education drawing directly from some of the experiences of members of UNITY, Stirling University's service user and carer group.
Read More

Student mental health and wellbeing on placement

Two social work students look at the subject of mental health in social work students, the importance of awareness of life stressors that students may face and how to support practice teachers and students to get to know one another better when first meeting.
Read More

The art of asking “What do you think?” – How to develop social work students’ professional judgement skills

Joanna Rawles discusses how social work students develop the skills for professional judgement on their placements and what helps them to do so.
Read More

Revisiting Explosive Metaphors and Practice Learning Relationships

Gillian Ferguson explores the significance of the varying and complex dynamics when issues arise within practice learning.
Read More

Language Integrity: Supporting Students to Demonstrate Social Work Values through Word Choice

Students often adopt the language being used by those around them without necessarily questioning it. Sara Hitchin writes about whether the language we use reflects social work values.
Read More

It’s time to ditch acronyms!

Andrew Gambrill challenges us to ditch the acronyms.
Read More

Live observation of social work students: a four-step model

Allyson Davys and Liz Beddoe share their four-step model for the live observation of social work students.
Read More

Safe Collisions

Kirstin Parkes writes about working with students to reconcile divergent personal and professional values.
Read More

Reasons to be Cheerful (Part 3) – Becoming a Practice Educator

If you have ever thought about being a practice educator, or, are a practice educator and have not done it for a while, or currently have a student with you, here are 10 good reasons, why, in an era of even bigger and more complex workloads alongside rapidly disappearing resources, you should just carry on and practice educate regardless.
Read More

Are social workers like wine – better with maturity?

Jane Fenton wonders whether we need to consider more emphasis on logic, analysis, problem solving and a framework for critical reasoning as a core and systematic theme within social work education.
Read More