Beth Cole

I am currently completed my 100 day placement at Mosaic Foster Care acting as a Supporting Social Worker. The experience I have gained from this placement so far has been invaluable and I believe it has left me well equipped for my future career in Social Work.

My current duties are:

• General overseeing of foster families carer's and the young person or persons in their care.
• To ensure that the foster carer's provide a warm and nurturing environment for their young people using the therapeutic model developed by Mosaic.
• To promote and safeguard young people and the foster carer's welfare.
• Complete a Form F assessment.
• Work within a professional network in order to provide top quality care to young people and their carer's. This includes attending relevant meetings such as PEPs, LAC Reviews, Safeguarding Reviews, Annual Reviews and stability meetings.
• Ensure that foster carer's are fully compliant with relevant documentation inline with GDPR.
• Hosting monthly supervisions for foster carer's.
• Direct work with young people to build positive relationships.
• Working in accordance to legislative bodies such as The Children's Act (1989) and The Care Standards Act (2000).

My 70 day placement in my second year at university was at MIND charity supported housing accommodation. This was a fantastic learning opportunity for me and I really enjoyed being able to apply my knowledge of theory and interventions I had learnt in my first year.

My duties included;

• Helped service users to gain ability to function independently in society.
• Hosted weekly support sessions for each service users.
• Attend PACE calls at the local police station and at as the appropriate adult for vulnerable detainees.
• Determined ongoing patient safety, promptly reporting concerns about abuse or safeguarding issues to care managers.
• Documented accurate and updated caseload records and reports to streamline process.
• Liaised with external and internal professionals to provide holistic support.
• Hosted weekly craft groups and arranged trips to library to encourage service user wellbeing and open discussions.
• Work inline with current legislation such as, The Mental Health Act (1983) and The Human Rights Act (1998).

This role requires me to support families within the Better Start wards with breastfeeding. This would include a series of 1:1 appointment both antenatal and postnatally for up to 6 weeks after birth.

This role sparked my interest in applying for the social work degree as I would often be involved with families with high levels of safeguarding.

My duties include-

• Advise communities on nutrition, birth and breastfeeding.
• Assisted in getting breastfeeding started, teaching breastfeeding techniques.
• Proactively supporting breastfeeding and bottle-feeding mothers, providing helpful guidance and advice to optimise those choices.
• Offering antenatal and postnatal classes to parents.
• Working alongside Midwives and Nurse's to offer excellent care.

This role emphasised my passion for helping families in need. I encountered a lot of bereavement and loss cases, and I was given formal training on how to interact with families during crisis. The skills I learnt whilst in this role were invaluable to my social work training and gave me an insight into the safeguarding procedures surrounding a child in need.

My duties included-

• Checked paediatric patient vital signs, promptly reporting abnormalities for intervention.
• Collected biological samples for use in diagnostic testing.
• Assisted with patient's daily routines such as feeding, changing and bathing.
• Monthly parent craft classes.
• Eased family anticipation by updating regularly on patient progress, developments and treatment changes..
• Completed documentation of care, hospital actions and patient activities for up-to-date client records.
• Adapted to service users' needs and requests to maintain personalised care.

During my time at Imperial Day nursery, I completed an apprenticeship to complete my level in childcare. I started working in this role when I was just 15 years old and still completing my GCSE's. This role left me equipped with good communication skills with parents and carers and gave me the confidence to further my career into the NHS.

This was a great window of opportunity for me to gain confidence with working with young children within an EYFS setting, I built a good rapport with lots of the children I cared for, and I enjoyed watching the children develop.

My duties included-

• Facilitated Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) learning and play.
• Developed positive, trusting relationships with groups of young children.
• Set up equipment and materials ahead of recreational activities.
• Safeguarded and protected welfare of young children.
• Regularly utilised multi-tasking expertise to ensure multiple children's needs were effectively met.
• Demonstrated awareness of children's cultural background, disabilities and medical histories.
• Upheld reliable routines to minimise children's stress and anxiety.
• Wrote up regular activity and observations reports, monitoring children's progress and development.
• Planned and led engaging activities for small groups of young children.
• Maintained records of children's daily activities, meals and medications administered.
• Helped children with personal hygiene needs and taught young children to independently complete care tasks.
• Supported children to identify and manage their feelings and behaviours.
• Worked with large team to complete daily tasks to schedule.
• Established and maintained positive relationships with parents, carers and nursery staff.