'Treading water and trying to keep your head afloat': How can we improve the experience of participants on Year 2 of the Frontline Programme?

In their first year of qualified social work practice and in their second year on the programme, Frontline participants carry out first-person action research. They draw on at least one of the Frontline practice models (systemic approaches, motivational interviewing and parenting support) to explore and develop their practice in line with their values. This thesis describes my own action research project, carried out in my role as the curriculum lead for the Frontline Year 2 programme. It asks the question ‘How can we improve the experience of participants, as action researchers, on Year 2 of the Frontline Programme?’ This question emerged from a professional dilemma; my belief in the value of carrying out action research, alongside awareness that the second year of the programme was emotionally and academically challenging. As a small-scale qualitative research project, this study focuses on emotional experience. A blend of methods, including free association narrative interviews, co-research, voice-centred relational and thematic analysis were used when interviewing nine ex-participants (fellows) of the programme and analysing the data. The data is viewed through a critical realist (Houston, 2010) and psycho-social lens, considering myself and research participants as defended subjects (Hollway & Jefferson, 2000). Research interviews took place between December 2021 and May 2022. As an action research project, the research had both investigatory and emancipatory aims. The latter were enacted through the co-creation, with research participants, of one-page stories describing their experience of the programme. This archival knowledge (Epston,1999) was shared with current participants of the programme. In addition, themes emerging from the data were used to shape and develop the design and delivery of the Year 2 programme. Future plans to improve participants’ experience include the teaching of foundational psychoanalytic concepts to build awareness of the impact of unconscious processes on emotional experience. The study demonstrates the value of drawing on student narratives of emotional experience when planning and delivering social work programmes. It also makes the case for curricula and organisational cultures that acknowledge the emotional nature of the social work task. This, in turn, can support students to make sense of and manage their emotional responses to practice and practice-based research. In addition to the aim of local improvement, the study’s findings hold relevance beyond the Frontline programme, relating to the emotional experience of early career social workers and the capacity to complete practice-based research. Emerging themes highlight the influence of wider societal discourses on the capacity to show vulnerability and seek support, as well as the importance of containing spaces and roles, not only for emotional well-being, but for ‘research-mindedness’.