“How cool is this?!!” Bringing student teachers into IPE


“I am now more confident on the roles of SW’s and SLT’s”
PGCE student
Over a number of years colleagues from the Division of Speech and Language Therapy at DMU and the Schools of Education and Social Work at the University of Leicester have developed a one day IPE (Interprofessional Education) workshop for student speech and language therapists, PGCE teachers and social workers. The workshop started as a series of very small pilots involving only a few of the students on the Primary PGCE course. Following the publication of Every Child Matters the lead tutors were asked to run the day for all the PGCE students. In January 2012 this event ran for 233 students.


“Enjoyed working with the TTs and social workers, everyone is client focussed and brings their own background knowledge forward to work holistically”
SLT student
IPE is well established for health and social care students and other such as the police have become involved more recently. It is comparatively rare for student teachers to take part especially those studying the intensive one year PGCE course. In Leicester we have been very successful in developing a one day event which aligns with all three curricula and receives very positive feedback.


I really felt that the students were ALL listening very, very attentively and interestingly. They certainly looked like a good bunch of dedicated students,mature, and who will certainly take their career very seriously.
Parent


“Meeting parent was fantastic as allowed to think about how complex it can be”
SW student
A key factor in the success of the day has been the involvement of parents. This was piloted for the first time 4 years ago. Since then a number of parents have come forward to talk to students during this day. All these parents have children with speech language and communication needs (SLCN) and other special educational needs, these children have all spent some time in mainstream school. The parents talk to the students about their experiences of working with professionals to support their children in school and the impact on the family. We have worked to involve the parents in the planning, for instance by meeting with them as a group a week before the workshop to plan their talks as a team. On the day we meet with them for coffee before their talk and have a de-briefing lunch afterwards. Feedback from both parents and students has been highly positive. In the afternoon of the workshop students discuss a case scenario of a child with SLCN in their inteprofessional groups. Each profession has different (profession-specific) information about a child creating a genuine need to share information and reach a joint understanding of the situation. In this discussion students draw on the experiences they have just heard from a “real” parent. Parents involved in the workshop have contributed to the case studies reinforcing these links. The value of this experience is captured in the student comment overheard by a tutor, “How cool is this?!! We’re having a case discussion and in a couple of weeks I’ll be doing it in practice!”


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