The Journey from the Talk to the Walk: The teaching of self care and emerging social worker experiences

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This is a recording of one of the concurrent workshops from the AASW National Symposium in November 2015. The workshop was presented by Rosemary Qummouh and Sera Harris on "The journey from the talk to the walk: the teaching of self care and emerging social worker experiences".

This presentation focuses on research that explores how social work students learn to ‘self care’ in their placement experience. By highlighting the experiences of students from the University of Western Sydney, this presentation explores the learning tools that students draw upon to practice self care in their placement experience.

Factors such as the geographical location for student placements in rural and international settings will also be discussed in relation to the impacts to the learning and practice of self care.

For many students, placement is their first opportunity to put many newly acquired skills into practice, and caring for the self is one of these. By understanding how students construct self care in their early career experiences (in both on and offline spaces), we can better support students in their learning and in their current and future practice.

Presenter details

Rosemary Qummouh is a social worker with 20 years clinical experience working in mental health, community based programs with newly arrived refugee/humanitarian entrants and asylum seekers. Rosemary’s background is in Social Work, Sociology and Counselling, specialising in trauma with a focus on post-traumatic stress disorders and mental health social work practices. Rosemary is currently a lecturer, social work educator, practice supervisor and Field Education Coordinator with University of Western Sydney. Rosemary has a passion and interest in bringing her field experiences to the teaching of social work practices across both social work and BCSD programs at UWS.

Sera Harris is a social worker with 15 years experience working in mental health and in the youth sectors, in both direct practice and in management roles. She currently is a social work educator and practice supervisor, and is completing her PhD at the University of Western Sydney in partnership with the Young and Well CRC, on the extent and role of digital technology used by social workers in direct practice settings.