Practice Educator Training

Practice Educator Training Register 

University of Sheffield SLT Programmes Training for Practice Educators Policy

All Practice Educators must undertake training before taking responsibility for a student’s practice-based learning. Here at the University of Sheffield we provide training for new Practice Educators and continuing Practice Educators. For comprehensive guidance on practice placements please see the RCSLT Practice Based Learning Guidance. This policy is to be used in conjunction with our Overall Placement Handbook. 

Who can provide placements?

All UK practice educators will be HCPC registered. Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs) working at any level in any setting can be involved in student placements once they have undertaken training to do so. As stated in the RCSLT Practice Based Learning Guidance, Band 5 SLTs should have completed their NQP Goals (competencies), before they take a lead as a practice educator. It is more likely that this will be appropriate for more experienced Band 5 therapists. NQP SLTs can support student learning prior to acquiring their competencies as part of a team. They may wish to engage in practice educator training if this is the case.

Expectations of Practice Educators

Practice Educators are asked to:

• attend initial University of Sheffield Practice Educator Training before taking on students

• repeat training once every three years in line with the RCSLT Practice Based Learning Guidance  

• engage with all documentation including placement handbooks prior to any placement. These are emailed to Practice Educators (and/or PE coordinators and also available on this SLT Provider Information Site under Documentation. We have a comprehensive Overall placement handbook as well as briefer placement specific handbooks.

• maintain regular contact with our team at the University of Sheffield as necessary

• raise concerns about the student(s) with the university as soon as they are identified

• be aware of and compliant with EDI and Anti-Racism Policies for their service.

Students are able to raise any concerns they may have about the placement with the service and university. The student will give feedback about the placement independently through the university. This feedback will be returned to the placement provider (where completed) and the service will take action to respond to the feedback if appropriate (See placement handbook).

HCS Practice Educator Training 

There are two options for our Practice Educator Training, i) training for new practice educators and ii) refresher training for continuing practice educators. Please read more below about these two different types of training:

Training for New Practice Educators

Our New Practice Educator training is suitable for SLTs who are ready to begin supervising students on placement. New Practice Educator training will delivered ‘live’ online every October. A blended learning approach is taken, e.g., a combination of pre-training online learning and the instructor-led interactive session. We are aware that SLTs may wish to start supervising students at different times in the year. For this reason, SLTs new to practice education will have the option of completing our pre-recorded online training to enable them to take students on placement at an earlier stage if needed. Pre-recorded training can be accessed on our Practice Educator website (please contact ahpnm-placements@sheffield.ac.uk  for further information). The training involves completion of online mandatory training videos and related quizzes. On completion of the pre-recorded training, new practice educators can start to take University of Sheffield students. However, they must also register for and attend the live, online New Practice Educator training in October.

We recognise that some PEs may not be new to supervising students but still be new to our SLT programmes at the University of Sheffield. In this case, the requirement will be to complete the pre-recorded online training on our Practice Educator website prior to taking students. There will be no requirement to register for the live, online New Practice Educator training. Instead, these PEs should attend our Continuing Practice Educator training at the next available date and within three years.

Refresher Training for Continuing Practice Educators

In line with the RCSLT Practice Based Learning Guidance, after accessing our initial training, PEs will attend training once every three years. This training will be delivered live online every around January/February. A blended learning approach is taken, e.g., a combination of pre-training online learning and the instructor-led interactive session. In the event that a Practice Educator due for their 3-year refresher training is unable to attend on the January date, the requirement will be to complete the pre-recorded online training on our Practice Educator website prior to taking students. They should attend our Continuing Practice Educator training at the next available date and within three years. Our continuing practice educators can also engage with our online training and other resources at any point as part of their Continuing Professional Development.

Services interested in bespoke training for their teams can contact emma.gregory@sheffield.ac.uk

How to access the Practice Educator website

The Practice Educator website is hosted on Blackboard via the University's software package. Please contact  ahpnm-placements@sheffield.ac.uk  with any queries.

How we monitor engagement with Practice Educator training
It is the responsibility of individual PEs to keep up to date with their PE training needs. Our placements team will also keep a record of who has accessed the training. We also request that Placement Coordinators or Clinical Leads keep a central record of PE training within their service, to ensure that SLTs being allocated students on placement have undertaken the required level of training.

What is my commitment to taking students after training?

The RCSLT Practice Based Learning Guidance states that SLTs should commit to offering practice placements after having attended training. RCSLT asks that all SLTs offer a minimum of 25 days of practice-based learning, per year, per whole time equivalent (pro rata). This quota relates to the total time spent overseeing a student’s learning, i.e., the PE does not need to be present with the student at all times. They advise that if it is not possible for an SLT to offer 25 days, there should be a clear explanation provided. We are keen to work with services to support the transition to this new guidance. We will continue to discuss how we can do so within our University of Sheffield Practice Educator meetings. Please do contact emma.gregory@sheffield.ac.uk if you have any queries around this. 

Enrolment Instructions for the online Practice Educator training course

1. First, click the link to access the Training and Development Manager to sign up for an account. If you are unable to click the link, please copy and paste this link into your browser:   Practice Educator Blackboard Site

2. This should take you to the University of Sheffield external courses webpage where you will need to scroll down until you see the blue box for 'University of Sheffield External Course (version 2') and click this to access the link.

3. This should then launch the blackboard sites and you should see the 'Speech and Language Therapy Training' 

4. Use the 'Enrol Now' button and follow the instructions to enable you to register adding in the below criteria and agree to terms of service and policy. and click 'Save'.

   1. • Email Address

      • First Name

      • Surname

      • Password

      • Confirm Password

      • City

      • Country etc

4. You will then be sent a security code to your chosen email address, you copy this token into the pop-up box, and then click Submit.