Giving Real Opportunities for Work
Placement Supervisors Guidance Notes
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1.
ABOUT YOU - PLACEMENT SUPERVISORS
1.1
Placement Supervisor: role and responsibilities
The placement supervisor role is a pivotal role in the GROW project. Their feedback ensures
that trainees develop, progress and receive honest feedback.
The details about what is expected of placement supervisors, as well as the support provided,
are detailed in the GROW Placement Supervisor’s Job Description.
Some of the key responsibilities of a placement supervisor are to:
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Arrange a thorough induction into the team’s work and the role of a support/main
grade worker. Elements of the induction can be delegated to other members of staff,
and your team’s standard induction checklist for all new staff could be used.
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Arrange shadowing and other learning opportunities to ensure your trainee has
opportunities to develop their competencies. Trainees report that their most useful
learning opportunities come from shadowing their placement supervisor for the first
couple of weeks and then shadowing different members of the team to learn from a
range of approaches.
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Provide monthly (or more frequent) supervision sessions to assess and evaluate
progress in the development of their competencies. The competencies framework
outlines the skills and knowledge trainees are expected to learn during their
traineeships. Trainees report they have learned much from supervision sessions and
that both praise and constructive criticism (delivered with compassion) have helped
them to improve. If you are a new supervisor, please sign up for Supervision Skills
Training for Placement Supervisors run as part of TRB ‘s core training programme.
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Prepare and participate in the trainee’s 3- and 6-month reviews. Placement
supervisors will be expected to complete relevant GROW review forms one week
prior to each review meeting and circulate them to the trainee, GROW manager, team
manager and, in the case of the six-month review, their life coach. These forms are
included as pack of this pack. Electronic version can be downloaded from the
Traineeship page on Pulse.
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Keep in regular contact with life coaches. Placement supervisors are expected to email life coaches at the end of each month a brief update about the trainee’s
achievements and any issues that have arisen that could prevent the trainee from
progressing. The purpose of this communication is to offer the trainee and their life
coach the opportunity to discuss in more depth the reasons behind the trainee’s
successes and setbacks and identify additional sources of support, if required.
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Identify a buddy. The buddy should be another member of the team who has
volunteered for this role. The role of a buddy is outlined in the GROW Buddy’s job
description.
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Keep the GROW manager informed. The GROW manager’s role is one of support,
troubleshooting and monitoring. It is important that the GROW manager’s role does
not undermine the line management structure and should issues arise your line
manager is your first point of call. However, within the GROW programme we have
developed considerable experience about what issues commonly arise for trainees
and placement teams and ways to resolve these. Please feel free to contact the
GROW manager to draw on this experience. Finally, we are keen to improve the
programme and to this end it is very helpful if you keep the GROW manager up to
date with any issues that arise for your team or the trainee.
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Send monthly monitoring information to GROW Manager, i.e. see sections on
Timesheets and Travel Expenses.
1.2
Support for you - placement supervisors
Placement supervisors are offered formal training and support sessions through the GROW
project.
In recognition that many placement supervisors will be taking on this supervisory role for the
first time, supervisors are offered a half-day supervision skills training at the start of the
traineeship.
In conjunction with the team manager, placement supervisors are also offered a one-day
training on the competencies framework, the Code of Conduct, and details of the GROW
programme.
Ongoing to placement supervisors support is provided through quarterly group review
sessions. Placement supervisors in the past report that they have found these sessions very
useful as they provide a forum to:
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discuss their trainee’s progress and hear how other trainees are progressing
receive peer support around particular challenges
ask the GROW Manager questions
hear how other supervisors in the past have implemented the competencies
framework, resolved issues and felt about their role
make recommendations for changes to the GROW project/ traineeship.
Dates for the quarterly reviews have been set and can be found in the GROW Diary Dates
section of these Guidance Notes.
Informal support is provided to placement supervisors on an add hoc basis. If you have any
concerns, questions, ideas or recommendations, please do not hesitate to contact the GROW
Manager directly at any point in the traineeship.
1.3
Monitoring
Copies of monthly timesheets and travel expenses forms should be signed by trainees and a
manager and sent to the GROW Manager each month. (See sections on timesheets and
travel expense for more details). At the end of the traineeship, please send a copy of the
trainee’s completed annual leave card to the GROW Manager.
2.
ABOUT YOUR TRAINEE
2.1
Trainee’s training programme
All support worker trainees are entitled to all the core training provided for all new workers.
Trainees in other Services (i.e. Central Services) will be registered on all core training courses
that are relevant to their roles. Most of this training is provided in the first four months of the
traineeship so the trainee can gain the professional knowledge that will support their
placement-based work experience.
In addition, all trainees also participate in five days of GROW induction training and one and a
half days’ training on communication, interpersonal, and teamwork skills.
In the first month of the traineeship, trainees are allotted some Home Study days. The
majority of these occur in the first three weeks of the traineeship. Home study days allow
trainees to:
- reflect on what they have learned in their training days,
- take a break from their new work structure of 9 – 5 working which may be new to
some and take a bit of time to adjust to
- sort out their benefit claims
- open a bank accounts - essential for their monthly pay cheque.
2.2
Salary
As April 2006, all GROW trainee’s salary is £15,524.60 per rota. This means that your
trainee’s take home pay is approximately £970.per month.
In recognition that it is difficult to make the transition from benefits to paid work, all trainees
are offered the option of salary loans in the first 6 weeks of their placement. Trainees
complete a Salary Loan form with the GROW Manager in their first week indicating which
weekly they would like loan payments.Salary loans are provided through the Finance
Department in cheque form on the Friday of each week. Trainees should appear in person on
the relevant Friday at the Finance department in order to sign for their cheque.
The remainder of the trainee's salary that has not been taken as a loan during the month will
be electronically transferred into the trainee’s bank account on the 28th of the month.
If a trainee has decided not to opt for a Salary Loan(s) when first asked but subsequently
decides they are needed, the trainee can approach the GROW Manager and have their
Salary Loan form amended. However, as with all other cheque requests, the Cheque Request
form accompanying the amended Salary Loan form needs to be signed off by the GROW
Manager and arrive at the Finance Department before 11am on any given Monday if a
cheque is needed on the Friday of the same week.
The offer of salary loans does not extend past the first 6 weeks of the traineeship.
2.3
Annual leave entitlement
All GROW trainees are entitled to 24 days annual leave pro rata, i.e. 18 days during their nine
month placement. This is comparable to the entitlement allowance of TRB’s other traineeship
- Graham House’s Community Service Workers. All annual leave should be agreed with you
and recorded on a TRB annual leave card. At the end of the traineeship, please send a copy
of the annual leave card to the GROW Manager for monitoring purposes.
2.4
Sick pay
In accordance with our sickness absence policy, GROW trainees, for the period of their 9
month contract, are entitled to a maximum of 15 sick days on full pay and the pro-rata
equivalent for contracts which are extended. For any additional days taken they will either
receive no pay or Statutory Sick pay depending upon the length of time they are absent. If the
amount of hours they work per week is changed, then their entitlement will decrease (please
contact HR for details).
Trainee’s must notify their line manager as soon as they know they might be absent from
work, they must attend back to work interviews and supply relevant self certificates / GP notes
as required by our sickness absence policy, which can be found on the HR homepage on
TRB's intranet.
2.5
Timesheets
All trainees are required to complete timesheets at the end of each month that outline the
hours they have worked and any leave taken. These must be signed off by both the trainee
and the placement supervisor and a copy sent to the GROW Manager by 7th of the following
month.
2.6
Travel Expenses
Under the GROW programme, all trainees are entitled a 50% rebate of their weekly or
monthly bus or tube travel card regardless of the team they are placed in. They are able to
claim this in advance (i.e. on the 1st of the month for the period ending on 31st of that month)
This is a taxable benefit and therefore trainees should be made aware that they will receive
approximately 1/3 less of the total figure recorded on their Expenses form. A photocopy of
their travel card should be attached to their Expenses form for auditing purposes.
Trainees are also entitled to claim for single journeys carried out as part of their work at TRB.
They need to claim these journeys back retrospectively and all original receipts should be
attached to their Expenses form. These journeys are non-taxable and the trainee can expect
the full amount reimbursed.
Please ensure that your trainee only submits one Expenses form per month (both their
advanced weekly/monthly card claim and their completed single work-related journeys can be
included on the one form).
Trainee’s expenses are currently paid for out of the GROW budget. So please, ensure
‘GROW BUDGET’ is written in big letters across the top of the Expenses form on the front
Summary page.
The Expense form should be processed through the same route as your own (e.g. sent to the
Finance Dept via your admin/ finance worker).
Copies of monthly travel Expenses forms (including copies of all receipts) should be signed
by the trainee and their placement manager and sent to the GROW Manager each month.
2.7
Competencies framework
The competencies framework has been developed as a tool to assess and monitor the
development of your trainee’s skills and knowledge in their new role. It comprises seven
categories: five generic core competencies that all TRB workers should strive to master (e.g.
professional conduct, health and safety) and two that are specific to a particular role (e.g.
support worker, IT worker).
A significant part of your supervision sessions and three- and six- month reviews should be
dedicated to reviewing these competencies and any issues that are standing in the way of the
trainee’s progress.
2.8
LINK access
All trainees will have access to LINK and be expected to input service user data once they
have received some initial training.
During their one month of induction, trainees receive basic LINK training as part of the one
day Office Skills IT training. This covers logging on to LINK, changing their password and
recording an action.
There is an expectation that once in their placement, their placement supervisor will provide
them with guidance and training on how LINK is used within their local team. This will enable
trainees to familiarise themselves with LINK before attending the ½ day LINK Essentials
training in their second month. Following this they should begin to use LINK to input service
user data within their local project. The importance of confidentiality and consequences of
breaching it needs to be outlined in each of these sessions.
If placement supervisors have any concerns about a trainee’s honesty then they should
discuss this with their manager. So far, no issues of mistrust have arisen in regards to
trainees sharing information stored on LINK inappropriately.
2.9
Support for GROW trainees
In addition to the support you will offer as placement supervisor, a number of structures exist
within TRB to provide support for the trainee during their placement. These include:
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the buddy in your team
the life coaching service
trainee group reviews sessions lead by the GROW Manager
the Service Users at Work Group
confidential counselling (CIC).
Life Coach
Each trainee should have a life coach. Life coaches are TRB staff who are not employed
within the team that the trainee is working. Their role is outlined in the ‘Life Coaching Service
Description’ attached.
Trainees should be given time off during their working schedule to meet with their life coach generally on a fortnightly basis. The conversations trainees have with their life coaches focus
primarily on the personal impact of work, the transition from unemployment to employment,
and moving on from the traineeship.
Trainee’s group review meetings
Trainees will be expected to attend regular group review sessions. These occur every two
months. All trainees come together with the GROW manager to:
- review how they are getting on in their placement,
- give and receive support to and from each other
- evaluate the programme and make recommendations for change.
Please see the GROW diary schedule for upcoming meeting dates.
Service Users at Work group
The Service Users at Work group comprises a number of TRB employees (not exclusively
trainees) who have personal experience of homelessness and service use. They meet every
six to eight weeks and act as a consultation group to the organisation and as a peer support
group for each other. It is not compulsory for your trainee to attend these meetings, but many
have found them to be very supportive and interesting so if a trainee is interested they should
be given time off to attend. The group’s Terms of Reference and minutes from previous
meetings can be found on the GROW page of the Intranet.
2.10
Worries and challenges for trainees
Trainees report a number of different worries when working in a team. The list below is not an
exhaustive list but may help to remind us what it is like to be a new worker, and thus to assist
us in providing trainees with appropriate support. Worries and challenges include:
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2.11
How to ask colleagues questions without feeling that they are bothering or
interrupting colleagues or managers
Looking stupid when having to ask how to use office equipment more than once
Constructive feedback feeling more harshly delivered than intended and therefore
trainees taking it very personally and feeling hurt
If they make mistakes, particularly around the 5-8 month period, trainees worry that
this will have an impact on whether they will receive a good reference and
subsequent employment
Concern as to whether they will be able to assimilate all the information and develop
their competencies
Fear of failing
Concern about obtaining future employment
Dual roles – TRB service user and trainee
Some trainees have dual roles within the organisation i.e. trainee employee and current
service user. When this is the case, the GROW project attempts to place trainees away from
the service they are familiar with as a service user and into a team where they are not yet
known.
As the employment of service user trainees gathers momentum, TRB has reviewed many of
its policies. Without lowering the high professional working standards within the organisation,
we have amended our Code of Conduct and Confidentiality and Information Sharing policy to
take into account the special circumstances facing service user trainees. Additional guidance
notes have been written to assist placement supervisors in explaining and implementing the
changes to the Code of Conduct.
The protection of the privacy of current or former service user trainees is paramount. To this
end, any records (including those on LINK) pertaining to a current or former service user who
is employed within TRB are anonymised. Only their line manager and relevant key worker will
have access to these details.
When a trainee has a dual role within TRB, their status as an employee is paramount,
including being fully included in any work-related social events that the team or organisation is
hosting.
2.12
Relapse and exit strategies
During their GROW induction training, each trainee is asked to draft their own exit strategy.
The purpose of the exit strategy is to provide the GROW Manager (and, if required, the
placement supervisor) with clear guidance on what to do and who to contact if there is a
possibility of relapse. Trainees do not have to disclose their needs or histories but they are
encouraged to be honest to enable TRB to offer them specific support, if required. Unless
there is a significant risk of relapse the exit strategy will remain confidential between the
trainee and the GROW manager.
2.13
Mini-placements
All trainees will be strongly encouraged to do a mini-placement during their traineeships.
These usually start in the middle of the seventh month of the placement and last for 6 weeks
(i.e. until the end of the eighth month) at which time the trainee returns to their original main
placement.
The usual process is that all trainees move to their mini-placement at the same time. When
your trainee departs for another team, this leaves a trainee vacancy in your team that will be
filled by another trainee from this cohort. In other words, your team will be getting a different
trainee for this six-week period.
It is important that you attempt to make this a meaningful learning opportunity for your new
trainee. You will receive a copy of their six-month review forms completed by their current
placement supervisor and trainee. The competencies and areas of development to focus on
during this six weeks should be clearly outlined in these notes.
Before your trainee departs for their mini-placement:
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You are expected to contact their new mini-placement supervisor to discuss the issue
and goals detailed in their six-month review form.
It is important to discuss with your trainee how they feel about their mini-placement
and, if appropriate, arrange a project visit prior to them starting their placement.
The purpose of mini-placements is to give the trainee an opportunity to broaden their
experience and learn how we work with people with different needs and who are at a different
place in their own lives from the client group of their main placement. For example, if a
trainee’s main placement is with a TST team then we will attempt to place them in a hostel
setting for their mini-placement.
Mini-placements also enhance the trainee’s employability. Trainees most often enjoy their
main placement and sometimes are not very keen to move to a mini-placement. It is essential
that trainees understand that they are not guaranteed jobs at the end of their traineeship –
within their placement or within TRB in general. The more diverse the experience they can
outline on an application form the more likely they are to gain work.
Trainees can feel insecure when moving to a mini-placement and should be supported to see
this as positive learning experience. It is also an important lesson in being flexible and
adapting to change for, as we know, change is now commonplace in TRB (e.g. teams
merging, moving offices, redundancies). To know that they are able to adapt to change at this
stage will hopefully help them to see it is possible for them to do locum work in different
projects or apply for secondments outside of their placement team and indeed in other
agencies.
How are the mini-placements selected? Trainees are asked at their group review sessions
which team they might be interested in doing their mini-placement in. Generally, trainees
move to one of the teams in which another trainee from their cohort is placed. In some
instances, a trainee has asked to be placed in a team outside this group of placement teams.
Where possible, the GROW manager will attempt to do this. There is no guarantee that such
a team will have the capacity or expertise to work with GROW trainees (e.g. they may not be
trained to work within the competencies framework) and therefore, at times, GROW trainees
may experience some disappointment with the mini-placement allocated to them.
Can mini-placements be longer or shorter than 6 weeks?
Sometimes. We have extended two mini-placements to include the final month of the
traineeship (i.e. running the mini-placement for 10 weeks from half way through the sixth
month to the end of the ninth month). In both cases, the trainees had run up against issues
that were preventing them from progressing in their main placements and it was decided that
the opportunities offered in a 10-week mini-placement would help them develop their skills
further and overcome these issues.
2.14
Moving on from GROW – permanent employment?
The ultimate aim of the GROW traineeship is to support the development of a trainee so that
they are able at the end of the traineeship, or shortly after, to compete successfully on the
open market for jobs. For trainees in service delivery teams the aim is that their training and
work experiences raises them to the level of support worker. In the Central Service roles, our
aim is to support trainees to reach the level of assistant or officer in their chosen field (e.g. IT
assistant, information officer).
To this end, trainees are provided with job search skills.
Interview training and support
All trainees will be offered one half day of interview skills training and an one hour practice
interview with feedback. This will be arranged through TRB’s training officer. Generally this
training and support is offered around the six month point in a trainee’s placement. Although
some trainees may be eager to apply for jobs prior to the six month point, we strongly
encourage trainees to wait until after they have taken part in this training and have completed
their six- month review.
In addition to the interview skills training and practice interview, trainees will also receive oneto-one support from their life coach to augment this training. Each life coach will meet with
their trainee to identify the type of job they are interested in applying for, to review person
specifications and job descriptions, offer advice on completing application forms (some of
which is also covered in the interview skills training) and provide feedback on application
forms which have been completed. This is a key aspect of the life coach’s role in supporting
their trainee to successfully move on from the traineeship. However, this does not prevent the
placement supervisor from also offering feedback, advice and reassurance about the
application and interview process.
Please see the ‘Interview training and support schedule’ for your trainee to find out the timing
of dates and meetings in March 2007.
Internal First
With a target of increasing the number of employees with a personal history of homelessness
and service use, to 10% by the end of 2007 and 15% by 2009, TRB has amended their
recruitment policy to ensure that all posts Grade D and below are Internal First. This in no
way ‘gives’ GROW trainees jobs. They are expected to meet all the standards set within our
internal recruitment process (including a good standard of application form) and do the best
interview on the day, as is expected with any other applicants (e.g. Graham House’s
Community Support Workers, auxiliary workers, finance/ admin worker).
Contract extensions
While contract extensions have been offered to two GROW trainees, we are keen that the
practice of giving extensions is not seen as common practice. The knowledge that extensions
are available can act to demotivate trainees from completing the traineeship within the
designated period.
In both cases where extensions have been offered, strong arguments for this action have
been made.
2.15
Exit interviews
All GROW trainees should have an exit interview before they finish their traineeship. To
ensure a degree of objectivity, this will be carried out by a manager or experienced worker
who is employed in a different team from the placement team. Placement supervisors should
arrange this issue and the standard TRB exit interview form should be used.
All Relevant forms, job descriptions and information sheets will be available on the GROW
page as of 17.07.06. If you would like any information before that time, please contact me
directly. The GROW Calendar of dates will be distributed in Training for Placement
Supervisors and Team Managers on 15 September 2006.