VOW Supporting the Transition into Professional Practice – University (VSTPP-U)

The transition from student to qualified practitioner is a significant journey within a social work career, which begins in university. Alongside developing professional knowledge and skills, many Black, South Asian, and racially minoritised students are also navigating questions of professional identity, belonging, confidence, representation, and the realities of organisational life.

Each student begins this journey carrying stories already lived and told, which are shaped by family, relationships, culture, values, past education, previous experiences, and hopes for the future. Some become important sources of strength, while others can quietly influence confidence, self-belief, and how students begin to position themselves, or feel positioned, within their emerging professional identity.

Alongside this, students will encounter organisational experiences that shape how they come to understand themselves, others, and professional practice. These experiences may include institutional power, racism, bias, inequitable practice, and the wider realities of organisational life.

VSTPP-U recognises that professional development and the shaping of professional identity begin where these two worlds collide.

Rather than leaving students to navigate these experiences alone, VSTPP-U creates opportunities to think things through using VOW's psychosocial and systemic approach.

Within VOW, these interlocking influences are understood through what VOW playfully calls the forces of evil and darkness, otherwise known as the FEDs.

The FEDs describe the personal and organisational forces that can influence professional development and the shaping of professional identity, sometimes in ways that limit confidence, opportunity, and growth.

Personal FEDs include:

• Fear
• Self-doubt
• Internalised negative narratives
• Impostorism
• Neurodiverse difficulties
• Previous experiences
• Emotional responses

Organisational FEDs include:

• Institutional power
• Racism
• Bias
• Inequitable practice
• Organisational culture
• Leadership
• Performance
• Organisational structures and processes

Through reflexive spaces, students can think things through, recognise the relationship between personal and organisational FEDs, and develop the scaffolding, strategies, and stories of success needed to respond with greater confidence, clarity, and intention.

VSTPP-U supports students through VOW's original practice resources.

• The Metro Map – Exploring stories lived, stories told, and stories yet to be created throughout the transition from student to practitioner.
• PRACTISINGRACE Framework – Supporting reflexive thinking about 'race', racialised identities, relationships, power, and practice.
• 3S's© Approach – Developing Scaffolding, Strategies, and Stories of Success to strengthen confidence, professional identity, and intentional responses to the challenges and opportunities of professional practice.