The importance of connection: A quantitative study of students’ learning in placements completed remotely from an organisation

This quantitative study surveyed 82 Australian social work students who completed their placement during COVID-19. The delivery of health and welfare services during the pandemic had a significant impact on field education with the result that many placements had to be offered remotely from an organisation. The research was interested in whether this practice learning model can provide quality learning experiences for students by exploring various aspects of the placement experience. Frequency data were generated and the data were analysed using Chi-square tests to determine, firstly, if there were any statistically significant relationships between student learning outcomes and model of supervision, supervisor contact, type of e-placement and student demographics. Secondly, the various learning activities were rated against the students attainment of their placement learning outcomes and their developing confidence, skills and social work identity. Findings highlight that student learning is enhanced when they have opportunities to experience work within an agency setting and when agency staff are involved in supervising and supporting students in e-placements. There were also indications of negative learning outcomes when students are not provided with direct observation opportunities of agency staff and some evidence that e-placements might be more suitable for second placement students

Social work placement supervision- a snapshot of student experiences

Supervision is an essential contributor to student learning in social work field education. There has been little exploration to assess the adequacy of supervision during placement in Australia. This paper reports on an online survey undertaken by 284 students who had completed a social work placement in Queensland. The survey explored students’ experience of supervision in placements with on-site and off-site supervision, the duration and quality of the supervision sessions and the supervisory relationship as well as how the supervision contributed to their professional growth as a social worker. The findings highlight that while the majority of students valued the supervisory relationship and the quality of supervision they received, only just over half of the students on placement received the required amount of supervision by a qualified supervisor or were able to be observed by their supervisor as per ASWEAS requirements

A national survey of Australian social work field education programs: innovation with limited capacity

Social work field education programs globally are struggling to meet the demands of providing suitable placements for students and need to consider new and innovative placement models to both meet professional accreditation requirements and deliver high quality field education opportunities for social work students. This article reports on the qualitative responses of a national survey of Australian social work field education programs, which explored current challenges, innovative responses, and recommendations for the Australian Social Work Education and Accreditation Standards (ASWEAS) review, as well as hopes for the future of field education, and their capacity to undertake research into this area. Findings suggested that field education programs have been using incremental innovation in field education, including collaboration, partnerships, and new ways of responding to the changing student body. However, it is argued that radical structural change and additional resources will be needed for innovation to be more than merely incremental

Mendelian gene identification through mouse embryo viability screening.

BACKGROUND: The diagnostic rate of Mendelian disorders in sequencing studies continues to increase, along with the pace of novel disease gene discovery. However, variant interpretation in novel genes not currently associated with disease is particularly challenging and strategies combining gene functional evidence with approaches that evaluate the phenotypic similarities between patients and model organisms have proven successful. A full spectrum of intolerance to loss-of-function variation has been previously described, providing evidence that gene essentiality should not be considered as a simple and fixed binary property. METHODS: Here we further dissected this spectrum by assessing the embryonic stage at which homozygous loss-of-function results in lethality in mice from the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium, classifying the set of lethal genes into one of three windows of lethality: early, mid, or late gestation lethal. We studied the correlation between these windows of lethality and various gene features including expression across development, paralogy and constraint metrics together with human disease phenotypes. We explored a gene similarity approach for novel gene discovery and investigated unsolved cases from the 100,000 Genomes Project. RESULTS: We found that genes in the early gestation lethal category have distinct characteristics and are enriched for genes linked with recessive forms of inherited metabolic disease. We identified several genes sharing multiple features with known biallelic forms of inborn errors of the metabolism and found signs of enrichment of biallelic predicted pathogenic variants among early gestation lethal genes in patients recruited under this disease category. We highlight two novel gene candidates with phenotypic overlap between the patients and the mouse knockouts. CONCLUSIONS: Information on the developmental period at which embryonic lethality occurs in the knockout mouse may be used for novel disease gene discovery that helps to prioritise variants in unsolved rare disease cases

Human and mouse essentiality screens as a resource for disease gene discovery

The identification of causal variants in sequencing studies remains a considerable challenge that can be partially addressed by new gene-specific knowledge. Here, we integrate measures of how essential a gene is to supporting life, as inferred from viability and phenotyping screens performed on knockout mice by the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium and essentiality screens carried out on human cell lines. We propose a cross-species gene classification across the Full Spectrum of Intolerance to Loss-of-function (FUSIL) and demonstrate that genes in five mutually exclusive FUSIL categories have differing biological properties. Most notably, Mendelian disease genes, particularly those associated with developmental disorders, are highly overrepresented among genes non-essential for cell survival but required for organism development. After screening developmental disorder cases from three independent disease sequencing consortia, we identify potentially pathogenic variants in genes not previously associated with rare diseases. We therefore propose FUSIL as an efficient approach for disease gene discovery. Discovery of causal variants for monogenic disorders has been facilitated by whole exome and genome sequencing, but does not provide a diagnosis for all patients. Here, the authors propose a Full Spectrum of Intolerance to Loss-of-Function (FUSIL) categorization that integrates gene essentiality information to aid disease gene discovery

Mouse genomic variation and its effect on phenotypes and gene regulation

We report genome sequences of 17 inbred strains of laboratory mice and identify almost ten times more variants than previously known. We use these genomes to explore the phylogenetic history of the laboratory mouse and to examine the functional consequences of allele-specific variation on transcript abundance, revealing that at least 12% of transcripts show a significant tissue-specific expression bias. By identifying candidate functional variants at 718 quantitative trait loci we show that the molecular nature of functional variants and their position relative to genes vary according to the effect size of the locus. These sequences provide a starting point for a new era in the functional analysis of a key model organism

A model of social work classification in health care

The introduction of casemix funding for Australian acute health care services has challenged Social Work to demonstrate clear reporting mechanisms, demonstrate effective practice and to justify interventions provided. The term 'casemix' is used to describe the mix and type of patients treated by a hospital or other health care services. There is wide acknowledgement that the procedure-based system of Diagnosis Related Groupings (DRGs) is grounded in a medical/illness perspective and is unsatisfactory in describing and predicting the activity of Social Work and other allied health professions in health care service delivery. The National Allied Health Casemix Committee was established in 1991 as the peak body to represent allied health professions in matters related to casemix classification. This Committee has pioneered a nationally consistent, patient-centred information system for allied health. This paper describes the classification systems and codes developed for Social Work, which includes a minimum data set, a classification hierarchy, the set of activity (input) codes and 'indicator for intervention' codes. The advantages and limitations of the system are also discussed