Preparing for placement – Health and social care learners

Here you will find the preparing for placement programme for your health and social care learners. This will be a useful tool for learners to work through whilst waiting for a suitable time to begin their placements or re-enter settings.

We know how valuable placement experience is for students in their learning journey. Placement enables knowledge gained in the taught environment to be applied, it provides opportunities for professional practice to be observed in action and it facilitates development of all important employability skills. Furthermore placement experience is essential for those undertaking sector led workforce qualifications where the overarching purpose is to confirm occupational competence.  

However securing placement opportunities for health and social care students in current times is likely to be challenging. With this in mind it may be helpful to consider a broader range of alternative placement settings to be accessed alongside the more traditional. These may include for example: 

• Services within the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector
• Leisure centres running events and activities for vulnerable individuals
• Health promotion events
• Inclusive learning environments within colleges and training providers.

This list is not exhaustive and in selection it is crucial to ensure the experience offered will be meaningful. Of course for students undertaking competency based qualifications due consideration must be given to the assessment strategy and principles and any experience must enable achievement of the assessment criteria. Please do contact you External Quality Assurer if you would like to discuss further suitability of potential settings.