Lisa, a Deakin social work undergraduate is currently finishing her final year and plans to work in the health field when she finishes her degree. Lisa's first placement was with Barwon Health at Grace McKellar and worked with a multidisciplinary team within the palliative care ward.

Metropolitan Placement

About the placement

Barwon Health is Victoria's largest regional health care provider that spans the Geelong and Bellarine Peninsula regions. The mission of Barwon Health is to provide a sustainable and integrated service that ensures high quality, safe, people-focused care that is responsive to the needs of the community. The palliative care ward within Barwon Health is located at Grace McKellar and combines active and compassionate therapies to comfort and support patients and their families who are living with a life-ending illness.

Role

Within the organisation, Lisa's responsibilities included psychosocial assessments, follow up care and supplying resources to both patients and carers. The main goal of the social work palliative program is to ensure efficient support to terminally ill patients and to aid them in a peaceful death. Additional support is also offered to carers for a life after caring. Lisa completed these tasks with the guidance and direction from her field educator.

Challenges

The main challenges that Lisa faced during her first placement were implementing organisational policy into her practice and maintaining a professional level with clients. Before the commencement of placement, Lisa had her mind set on how she wanted to assist the patients and their carers but this came into conflict with the organisational policies and procedures. This challenge was overcome through professional supervision that allowed Lisa to critically question the policies of Barwon Health with her supervisor and work within these policies to assist her clients. Lisa also found it challenging to remain on a professional level with her clients as many of the issues discussed between the practitioner and client are extremely personal and involve a high degree of self disclosure from the clients.

Highlights

One of the main highlights for Lisa during placement was being able to implement various theories within her practice that assured that she was working within the social work context. She greatly enjoyed her work environment and the opportunity to work with such skilled social workers. Her initial reason for completing the Bachelor of Social Work was to work within the palliative field but whilst progressing through the course, Lisa found to have great interest in the medical system as a whole and would also love to work with disadvantaged children and adults within the correctional services.

Rewards

The greatest rewards for Lisa during placement actually came from the clients themselves. Lisa knew that she had chosen the right profession when a client came up to her on the ward and gave her a huge hug because together they had achieved the goal of returning him home. Lisa further comments, "to actually see and share in the happiness of the client is the greatest professional reward I could have asked for my first social work placement."