Offer of choice-compulsory tasks for a tandem internship

1) Communication and direct casework with clients
1.Discuss with your mentor and a Czech student:
  1. how contact with clients is established within the organisation (who is most likely to initiate cooperation, what information is exchanged during the initial contact);
  2. what a social worker focuses on when trying to build and maintain a relationship with his or her clients (what he or she does to promote mutual trust);
  3. how cooperation with clients is ended in the organisation (how and under what conditions, how we prepare the client for it, what type of information is communicated between the social worker and the client when the cooperation ends).
Compare the findings with your country's practice.
2.Talk to the client of the organisation or another person (e.g. caregiver) and try to collect basic information about his/her nature, life situation and needs. Talk to the client about what led him/her to use services of the organisation. Reflect what your feelings were during the interview, what factors influenced the interview, and how much of the information you managed to obtain.
If it is not possible to interview the client or another person, ask your mentor for a model interview. You can focus the model interview on some specific situation – for example the first contact.
3.Participate in a social investigation or other field event in the accompaniment of a social worker. Reflect what your feelings were, what was important to you, what your observations were.
4.Discuss with the mentor and the Czech student how the individual service planning of services to clients is implemented in the organisation. Compare the findings with your country's practice.
 
2) Law, ethics and dilemmas in social work
1.Discuss with your mentor and a Czech student what the organisation's Code of Ethics for Social Workers in the Czech Republic is used for and what its content is. Compare the findings with your country's practice, looking for similar and different attributes.
2.Find out what ethical dilemmas social workers most often face in the organisation. Choose one of these dilemmas and suggest how to proceed.
3.Find out and describe the file management system at the place of your field internship. Focus on who administers it, what its content is, who can look into it, etc. Next, find out to whom and under what conditions a social worker can provide personal information about clients. Compare the findings with your country's practice.
4.Find out to what extent the clients in the organisation are aware of their rights and obligations (what is communicated to the client, how, at what stage of cooperation). Compare the findings with your country's practice.
 
3) Functioning of a social work organisation and its management
1.Learn about occupational health and safety, fire protection, and confidentiality in your organisation. Find out what is generally understood as a risk situation in an organisation and what the employees do to prevent and deal with them. Compare the findings with your country's practice.
2.Discuss with your mentor and a Czech student what risk situations social workers most often face in the organisation (the source of the risk may be a client, social worker/trainee or environment). Choose one specific risk situation and suggest how to prevent or deal with it.
3.Find out how information is exchanged between employees themselves, and employees with the organisation management throughout the day; how the system of meetings and supervision is set up in the workplace; how cooperation with other organisations takes place. Imagine that you work in this organisation and reflect to what extent this system is sufficient for you and to what extent you would change it. In your reflection you can build on your own experience from other organisations (outside the Czech Republic).
4.Identify one particular need of the organisation, worker or client in cooperation with your mentor and a Czech student. Agree on how to meet this need and plan (who will do what, when). Then, implement the plan and evaluate how well you've done it. For example, you can engage with clients or employees of your organisation, create a promotional flyer, or suggest a long-term activity.
 
4) Professional and personal self-development
1.Make a list of five to ten things you consciously do for yourself to ‘recharge batteries' and manage stress. Reflect on what you consider to be critical in managing work-related stress.
2.Discuss with your mentor and a Czech student about which situations/factors cause them stress and negatively affect them. Find out what the mentor consciously does for himself or herself and what his or her employer is doing to prevent burnout. Furthermore, consider whether any aspects of the organisation's functioning (and list them - e.g. meetings outside working hours, etc.) may also have a role in preventing burnout.
Suggest additional activities and/or procedures to prevent burnout.
3.Find out how the system of further education of social workers is set up in the organisation. Compare the findings with your country's practice. Identify your current priority educational needs.
4.Describe the situation that was most difficult for you during your internship. Indicate where the difficulty was for you and how you responded to the situation. Reflect on whether, in hindsight, you would respond in the same or different way.

Updated: 06. 01. 2020