This paper reports findings of a study exploring educator and student experiences of teaching and learning trauma-material. Two participant samples were recruited. Sample one included seven educators teaching trauma-material across two Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) delivering Social Work Programmes approved by Social Work England. Sample two included eight student social workers enrolled at the HEIs. Methods included educator semi-structured interviews and a student survey. Analysis used a deductive-inductive thematic approach. Highest frequency of comparable statements within data were coded into five themes indicative of trauma-informed teaching principles identified within literature including: (1) ensuring safety (2) maximising choice (3) encouraging collaboration (4) establishing trustworthiness and (5) prioritising empowerment. A sixth theme (6) promoting resilience was identified. Findings highlight educators’ understanding of vicarious trauma and relevance for risk of (re)traumatisation in the classroom of students’ experience of childhood adversity. This understanding was embedded in educators’ pedagogical practice(s) and how trauma-informed teaching principles were implicitly applied was identified. Experiences of receiving teaching in a trauma-informed way were shared by students. Findings indicate essential to ‘best practice’ is educators’ need to enhance awareness of trauma-informed teaching to help moderate risks to students and themselves associated with exposure to trauma-material in the classroom.

Stigmatisation is the process by which an individual is devalued based on their attributes, characteristics, and/or behaviour, with this often leading to prejudice, social and health-related harms, active discrimination, and microaggressions. The aim of this paper is to show how social harms can occur and how stigma is damaging to the health and wellbeing of a person in recovery. To do so, we focus on the harms that arise from the internalisation of labels that mothers who use drugs encounter in a treatment and recovery setting whilst in active recovery, and how this stigmatisation can manifest negative self-beliefs. Qualitative data was used from two semi-structured focus groups involving females with lived experience of substance use (n = 13). A reflexive thematic analysis approach was used to analyse the interview transcripts, and three themes were identified: (1) the enduring nature of stigma; (2) gender disparity and the need for mothers- and women-only spaces; and (3) stigma as a barrier to services and wellbeing. Findings revealed the enduring nature of stigma amongst mothers who were in active recovery, with women feeling judged more harshly than men and experiencing pressure to live up to a “good mother” ideal whilst in recovery. This paper demonstrates that mothers in recovery are still stigmatised and, as a consequence, approach services with increased sensitivity, with stigma often resulting in disengagement or reluctance to access healthcare settings. We conclude that staff in health, social, and primary care settings need to develop a strong therapeutic alliance with mothers in recovery and promote anti-stigma approaches in their practice, in order to mitigate stigma and reduce harms to health and wellbeing.

This paper presents findings of a pedagogical strategy for enhancing social work students’ knowledge and practice of ‘personal reflexivity’. Twenty-five MA students in England were presented ideas about ‘reflective practice’, ‘critical reflection’ and ‘reflexivity’ and encouraged to examine different interpretations including Archer’s theory of reflexivity as ‘internal conversation’. Archer’s Internal Conversation Indicator (ICONI) was used to determine students’ dominant reflexive ‘mode’. On programme entry, two students (8%) practised a communicative-reflexive mode, nine (36%) were autonomous-reflexives, six (24%) meta-reflexives and four (16%) fractured-reflexives. Four (16%) were unclassified. Sixteen students (64%) completed ICONI on two further administrations. Seven (44%) registered unchanged reflexive modes, whereas nine (56%) changed. Three (33%) unclassified changed to meta-reflexive, one (11%) from autonomous-reflexive to meta-reflexive and one (11%) from fractured-reflexive to meta-reflexive. Two (22%) meta-reflexives changed to autonomous-reflexives. One (11%) communicative-reflexive and one (11%) meta-reflexive became unclassified. Integrating Archer’s theorising into a pedagogical strategy for enhancing understanding of personal reflexivity encouraged students to identify their dominant mode. Resultantly, students were able to consider relevance of reflexive modes for reasoning, making decisions and being able to act within their value-commitments, beliefs and concerns within the constraints of social work contexts. Implications for social work education and practice are discussed.

This paper illustrates the development of a secondment project designed to enhance practitioner-led social work education in a Higher Education Institution. The project was developed as part of a Teaching Partnership initiative to establish joint working and standardized approaches to social work education between Higher Education Institutes and Local Authorities across a UK region. Highlighted is how the project utilized a six-stage strategy designed to gather information to produce an evidence-base to support the implementation of a pilot practitioner secondment arrangement. The paper discusses strategies used to gather information from a range of stakeholders to inform the project, the project outcome and some considerations for future secondment arrangements. Contributing to a limited source of literature, challenges and limitations of developing formal secondment arrangements and delivering practitioner-led education in Higher Education Institutes are highlighted. This paper will assist Higher Education Institutes and Local Authorities in the design and implementation of formal secondment arrangements where these are identified as in need of development.

This paper presents findings of a study highlighting police educators’ and student officers’ experiences of teaching and learning trauma-material in the classroom. Study participants included six police educators and eight student officers. Methodology included educator semi-structured interviews, student self-reporting surveys and deductive analysis. Comparable textual data coded as themes indicative of trauma-informed teaching included: (1) ensuring safety (2) maximising choice (3) encouraging collaboration (4) establishing trustworthiness (5) prioritising empowerment and (6) promoting resilience . Findings highlight variable trauma-informed teaching practices and how knowledge trauma risk in the classroom was embedded in pedagogical practice(s). Educators’ application of trauma-informed pedagogical principles to enhance students’ psychological safety in classroom settings is evidenced as ‘best practice’.