Karen Rodgers

Karen is a Senior Lecturer Practitioner in social work at Anglia Ruskin University, based in Cambridge. Her work is currently covering matters related to social work placements, including identifying and reviewing placements suitable for practice, offering guidance and support to students and placement tutors on practice learning issues, working in partnership with stakeholders (neighbouring local authorities, various agencies from the private, voluntary and independent sector) and ensuring that practice learning is embedded in both social work courses, MA (Cambridge) and BA (Cambridge and Peterborough).

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Background

Karen qualified as a social worker in 2003. She has a strong interest in practice education, supporting students on placement since 2006. Her practice background was in the field of HIV/AIDS and Older People’s Mental Health. She worked as a volunteer at a HIV/AIDS and Cancer hospice in Kampala, Uganda, supporting the Social Worker. She then worked extensively in training Local Authority social workers. This involved working on a project for the early implementation of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, then moving into the role of Adult Safeguarding Training Manager. Prior to moving to ARU she was a Professional Educator in a Social Work Professional Development Team, leading on the coordination of social work placements and Newly Qualified Social Workers (NQSWs) in their Assessed and Supported Year in Employment. Karen has also supported Practice Educators in training, within the role of Practice Learning Mentor and, as a trained coach, supporting NQSWs.

Research interests

Karen has a particular interest in the access and use of facilitative procedures and will shortly be commencing research into this area of practice.

Teaching

• Karen is Module Tutor on Assessed Readiness for Assessed Practice (ARDP) and teaches the BA and MA students in Cambridge and Peterborough. She also teaches on the postgraduate, Practice Education and Supervision module in Cambridge.
• Karen is directly involved in organising and delivering placement preparation sessions/workshops for BA and MA students at ARU (Cambridge and Peterborough), onsite placement supervisors and practice educators.

Qualifications

• BSc in Social Work (registered with SWE)
• PG Dip in Social Work with Adults
• Practice Educator PEPS 2
• Coach

Memberships, editorial boards

Social Work England