It’s Learning at Work Week 2021, aimed at putting spotlight on the importance and benefits of continuous learning at work and exploring why we're all made for learning.
At Petrus, alongside our training offer, our team will often share their learning and experiences with one another so we can continue to provide quality support to our service users; including through our management team delivering skill sharing sessions like our Head of Petrus Sonia’s mental health session a few weeks ago and ongoing peer support.
Our aim is that as our charity grows that our team grows with us.
Which is why we have really enjoyed having Martha, a student social worker, carrying out her placement with us and growing in her abilities over these past eight months.
As part of Learning at Work Week, Martha has blogged about her learning and placement experience:
My name is Martha and I am a Student Social Worker with Rochdale Council. Since October 2020, I’ve been working with Petrus as part of my placement to gain experience within an adult setting. This experience will enable me, as a social worker, to understand some of the lived experiences of the parents I will be working with.
I first started my journey at Petrus by working one day a week at the Hub. This was a great place to start as I met many service users and had the chance to get to know them and learn about their experiences in a relaxed environment. I often helped serve breakfast, assisted with food vouchers, supported service users to make phone calls and booked appointments.
I also supported Service Manager Vicky with the women’s service, where I completed initial assessments, supported female service users making applications for housing and worked with service users around improving their self-esteem and setting future goals.
I thoroughly enjoyed working at the Hub as all the staff members and service users were very friendly and I felt as though I learnt a lot!
I am now completing the second part of my placement at Petrus within women’s supported housing. Although I have met with service users of similar experiences to those at the Hub, it has been a very different experience which again I have thoroughly enjoyed and feel like I have learnt a lot. Here, I have been able to observe the day-to-day lives of women who have experienced adversity, in their own homes.
I am pleased to have built positive working relationships with many of the women where they have felt comfortable to tell me about their experiences. I have recently been supporting some of the women to reconnect with their children who are no longer in their care and women who are currently working with Children’s Social Care.
I have met many women who unfortunately did not have good experiences with social workers, and it has been really important for me to listen to why they did not have the positive relationships they needed in the past to allow me to take this on board within my own practice as a social worker!