ThursdayThunking

ISSN 2516-3078

Running on the first Thursday of every month, 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.

Dr Joanna Rawles

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.
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Revisiting Explosive Metaphors and Practice Learning Relationships

Gillian Ferguson explores the significance of the varying and complex dynamics when issues arise within practice learning.
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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.
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It’s time to ditch acronyms!

Andrew Gambrill challenges us to ditch the acronyms.
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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.
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Safe Collisions

Kirstin Parkes writes about working with students to reconcile divergent personal and professional values.
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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.
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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.
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Grading practice skills in social work education

Alison Domakin talks about grading practice skills in social work education.
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Better knowledge, better practice – a partnership approach to supporting social workers to access research

Sue Downie writes about a project to improve the research 'mindedness' and online searching skills of social work staff.
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Empowerment

Social work blogger Ermintrude explains why she struggles with social workers being told to 'empower' people we work with.
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Strategies for providing anti-racist practice learning opportunities: the potential of the ‘Dignity in Practice Learning’ framework

Prospera Tedam asks us to reflect on the sensitive yet crucial questions about discrimination and oppression in practice learning.
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Pain and pleasure: ideas for managing the ongoing challenge of supporting social work students with critical reflection

Kirstin Parkes outlines some strategies to help practice educators facilitate improved critical reflection in practice learning experiences.
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