Evaluation of Simulated Social Worker Practice Capability During Covid Lockdown: the Observed Structured Practice Assessment (OSPA)

This cross-University (South England) evaluation of innovative OSCE-style practice capability assessment was co-designed by people with experience, practitioners and educators. Our Observed Structured Practice Assessment (OSPA) simulated the Covid (and now hybrid) context of social work practice incorporating video conferencing online platforms to produce online initial safeguarding and wellbeing assessments. Eight volunteering postgraduate students watched a standardised interview alongside standardised telephone interviews with referral-makers and relevant professionals. ‘Triads’ of Expert Panel members rated the students’ written ‘Initial Assessment’ of the person in their environment and ‘Written Critical Reflection’ exploring their judgement-making. The paper reports findings from the outcome measures: the rated feedback of the student work; the pre and post-OSPA questionnaires (students’ knowledge, experience, confidence, demographics), and qualitative student interviews of the different OSPA activities.