Hannah Martin and Louise Bowen

After working on it for a year, our resource to support social work placements in third sector organisations is here! We are delighted to have reached this stage, and want to thank all of those who contributed their time, insights and perspectives to help us make the final resource. A particular thanks to People Know How for bringing the original idea to Iriss.

Project planning is full of decisions to make. What partners do you need? What will success look like? How responsive can your plan be to new information? The list goes on; and it’s something we are really familiar with in our Iriss work. Despite familiarity, drawing a boundary around a project, and a project output, is not always easy - particularly in a piece of work like Voices and Visions, where participants have routinely shared detailed perspectives with us.

There’s a lot of work that goes into preparing to host a social work student on placement in a third sector organisation, from communicating with universities, meeting with students and their tutors, to ensuring students have access to the IT systems they need when they start. Third Sector Organisations (TSOs) are busy preparing before a student arrives.