ABSTRACT

The social work field education liaison role is fraught with tensions, contradictions and role ambiguity, causing confusion about the role, functions and responsibilities of the liaison across individual staff, students and universities, resulting in students’ divergent experiences and liaison staff floundering in the mire of uncertainty. As an academic, my experiences of undertaking the liaison role across different institutions observing colleagues fulfilling the role differently and managerial changes to resourcing prompted me to review the literature further to develop understanding of the role and to inform my practice. A thematic literate review was conducted in which 36 academic articles were reviewed, excerpts collated, coded and analyzed. Six themes emerged and are explored in this piece: signature pedagogy and the importance of the liaison role; under-researched and ambiguous; roles, functions and responsibilities; a conduit of the university and governing bodies; the neoliberal managerialist context and a call to revitalise the liaison role. Further, reflections on how reviewing the literature informed my practice are shared. It is hoped this paper will provide an exploration of the liaison role that will invite others to engage in a reflective process and to begin reimagining how they fulfill the role.

摘要

社会工作实地教育联络员的角色紧张、矛盾和角色模糊，导致个别工作人员、学生和大学对联络员的角色、职能和责任感到困惑，导致学生的经历各不相同，联络员在泥潭中挣扎的不确定性。作为一名学者，我在不同机构担任联络员角色的经历观察到同事以不同方式履行角色以及资源配置的管理变化促使我进一步审查文献以加深对角色的理解并为我的实践提供信息。进行了一次专题文学审查，审查了 36 篇学术文章，对摘录进行了整理、编码和分析。这篇文章出现并探讨了六个主题：签名教学法和联络角色的重要性；研究不足和模棱两可；角色、职能和职责；大学和管理机构的管道；新自由主义管理主义背景和重振联络作用的呼吁。此外，还分享了关于回顾文献如何影响我的实践的思考。希望本文将提供对联络员角色的探索，邀请其他人参与反思过程并开始重新构想他们如何履行角色。