Ms Mary McHugh:

From a social care point of view, the area is so diverse and students go into such a diverse range of areas that sometimes it is very difficult to co-ordinate. Tusla has been very proactive in setting up and co-ordinating nationally in relation to social care and social work. It is unfortunate that it may be more focused on social work and those being co-ordinated are in social work and they are placing social care students. Maybe there needs to be more of a social care perspective on it but it has been excellent and very successful.

However, there needs to be more recognition of the practice educators who are providing the placements. It may be that many of them are Government funded in different areas such as disability and family support. Maybe there needs to be some recognition in payment or time off or whatever. They are working in hugely stressful environments. They have to provide placements which, as Ms Hanrahan said, are hugely valuable to our students and they need to be recognised. Perhaps a steering committee could get involved in that. Placements are vitally important to us.