MODULE OF ICs AND GCs FOR SUPERVISORS

Individual Conferences (IC), a critical tool of supervision, is arranged to facilitate interaction, sharing and feedback between supervisor and supervisee in a systematic, planned and confidential setting. ICs are supposed to be held every week during the assigned time. It provides a platform to discuss the issues and concerns arising out of field work. The supervisor is expected to facilitate the students to relate theory with practice, and monitor their progress in terms of accomplishment of field work tasks and objectives and improvement in quality of reporting. It provides the student an opportunity to reflect on their own strengths and weaknesses and work on them for the betterment. All students are mandatorily required to attend all such Supervisory conferences. Field work without IC is considered as unsupervised field work and stands a chance of being cancelled.

The responsibilities of the Faculty Supervisor could be summarized as:

• Making student comfortable with the field setting and its requirements
• Assisting the students to develop their thinking, attitude and behaviour and action in relation to the values and ethics of the profession
• Working out a work schedule in consonance with the field work objectives
• Enabling students in learning to relate theory with practice
• Sharing with students the evaluation criteria, performance indicators and other expectations in terms of recording, use of supervisory process, etc
• Providing periodic feedback to students about their professional growth
• Maintaining regular contact with the placement agency and agency supervisor for monitoring purposes

There are certain advantages to individual conferences which are listed below:

• Individual conferences meets the need of the individual worker
• It provides a forum for the students to discuss regarding the problems they face
• It gives the students the privacy required to express their thoughts and feelings to the faculty supervisor
• Faculty supervisor is in a position to exercise better control over the student and take better care of their needs
• To assist students identify any gaps in their learning during the practical

Group Conference:

Group conference is a vital part of the field work training, as it enables the students to develop some of the basic skills to become an effective social work professional. It provides the students a rare opportunity to get exposure to a wide range of areas. Each student is supposed to assume the role of Chairperson, Paper Presenter and Reporter at least once in each Group Conference. It provides the student an opportunity to experience the process of presentation of a formal academic and practice oriented paper, to chair and moderate a formal discussion, to record the proceedings of discussion in a systematic, precise and formal manner, and to develop understanding of various settings and opportunities relevant to the field of Social Work. It is an evaluative component of Fieldwork. They provide an indicative format for presentation and the roles of a chairperson, reporter and presenter.

Group Conference of Faculty and Students
In a group conference, the faculty supervisor attempts to educate students in a group with the objective of achieving the following:

• To exchange ideas of each student within the group and help each member of the group learn from the experiences of the other
• To increase co-operation and mutual support between members of the group
• To encourage students to speak their mind so as to increase their confidence through group interaction

Group Conferences also provide certain advantages in supervision which are listed below:
It brings about economy of time and effort since information can be disseminated at a stretch to all supervisees at one time It brings about a wider variety of teaching and learning experience. It provides skills to the faculty supervisor to supervise students more effectively than in an individual conference.

Field work seminars of the Students

The purpose of field work seminars is: To enable students to learn how to present the work done by them in the field work agency. To develop their art of presentation, self confidence and help them overcome stage fear.

Group conference is a mechanism to facilitate professional sharing among students and faculty supervisors. All students are expected to make a presentation in the group. They can select any issue from their field work setting and present it to the group for deliberation.

• The presentation to evolve from field work practicum being pursued by the student.
• Preliminaries- This includes information like name of the presenter, chairperson, recorder.
• Title of the paper and name of Placement Agency.
• Introduction of the organization/Agency and tasks planned by the field work trainee.
• Main content of presentation (Max 750 words) .
• Each presentation should be with the help of a power point presentation to a maximum of 10 minutes duration.
• The presentation will be followed by a discussion of 10 minutes duration.
• It should focus on agency profile, field work tasks, problems and challenges faced.
• The student is required to do a situational analysis of the problem that they are presenting and link it.
• The paper should finally focus on a particular issue in which the student has actively engaged in different Settings.

Guidelines and Evaluation for Group Conference Objectives:

1.To provide students exposure to different field settings.
2. To provide the students an opportunity to collect data, analyze and reflect upon areas of work through presentation.
3. To facilitate problem solving through group efforts.
4. To learn to make a presentation, chair a group meeting and act as a rapporteur.
5. To develop presentation and time management skills.
6. To gain exposure in peer learning processes.

Role of Chairperson

1. Welcome the presenter, rapporteur and resource persons.
2. Introduce the theme of the paper.
3. Explain the rules of the conference.
4. Encourage participation of the group.
5. Maintain discipline.
6. Time management.
7. Seek feedback from resource persons and faculty supervisors on the issue raised. Summarize the discussion

Role of a Rapporteur:

1. To record the proceedings of the group conference.
2. To submit the written copy of the report to the assigned faculty member in three days time
3. The report should cover the following: Name of the members present in the Group Conference, Summary of the presentation, Queries raised after the presentation, and a summary of discussion.