‘An altruistic act to give back’—the social work practice educator role in Ireland: motivation, satisfaction, challenges, and supports

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dc.contributor.authorMurphy, Niamh
dc.contributor.authorRose, Joanne
dc.contributor.authorO’Connor, Erna
dc.contributor.authorGaravan, Thomas
dc.contributor.authorWhiting, Sinead
dc.contributor.authorByrne-Cummins, Jean
dc.contributor.authorDorney, Lyn
dc.contributor.authorKelly, Eleanor
dc.contributor.authorSlavin, Paula
dc.contributor.funderDepartment of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth
dc.date.accessioned2026-04-29T14:50:06Z
dc.date.available2026-04-29T14:50:06Z
dc.date.issued2026-04-19
dc.description.abstractSocial work education is undergoing significant expansion, and internationally, securing requisite numbers of student placements to meet expanding numbers is challenging. This is similarly the case in Ireland, where the system is reliant on social workers assuming a practice educator role in addition to performing existing social work duties. Despite the pivotal role of practice educators, their perspectives are under-researched. In this article, we explore the perceptions of social work practice educators in Ireland to understand how motivation, challenges and support impact their role satisfaction. Based on a sample of 107 social workers and using both quantitative and qualitative data, we reveal that social workers have strong intrinsic motivation to engage in practice education, and this predicted their satisfaction with the practice education role. The extent of challenges encountered negatively impacted their satisfaction, and perceived support was an important amplifier of the motivation-satisfaction relationship. We highlight the precarity of the Irish model of placement procurement, as motivation to provide placements may be lost when individual practice educators leave their posts. We highlight future research, policy and practice implications of our findings.en
dc.description.sponsorshipIrish Government, Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (2023 National Practice Teaching in Social Work Initiative)
dc.description.versionPublished Version
dc.format.extent19
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.authororcidMurphy, Niamh
dc.identifier.authororcidRose, Joanne§0000-0002-1922-3621
dc.identifier.authororcidO’Connor, Erna
dc.identifier.authororcidGaravan, Thomas§0000-0003-2696-7853
dc.identifier.authororcidWhiting, Sinead
dc.identifier.authororcidByrne-Cummins, Jean
dc.identifier.authororcidDorney, Lyn
dc.identifier.authororcidKelly, Eleanor
dc.identifier.authororcidSlavin, Paula
dc.identifier.citationMurphy, N, Rose, J, O’Connor, E, Garavan, T, Whiting, S, Byrne-Cummins, J, Dorney, L, Kelly, E & Slavin, P 2026, '‘An altruistic act to give back’—the social work practice educator role in Ireland: motivation, satisfaction, challenges, and supports', Social Work Education, pp. 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2026.2655700
dc.identifier.doi10.1080/02615479.2026.2655700
dc.identifier.endpage19
dc.identifier.issn0261-5479
dc.identifier.journaltitleSocial Work Education
dc.identifier.otherORCID: /0000-0002-1922-3621/work/213290724
dc.identifier.otherORCID: /0000-0003-2696-7853/work/213290758
dc.identifier.startpage1
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/18710
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherTaylor and Francis Ltd.
dc.relation.urihttps://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105036156456
dc.rights© 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group .This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any med-ium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this articlehas been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
dc.rights.accessrightsopen access
dc.rights.licensenameAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.statusPeer reviewed
dc.subjectMotivation
dc.subjectPractice education
dc.subjectPractice educator
dc.subjectSocial work education
dc.subjectSocial work placement
dc.subjectWork integrated learning
dc.subject[SocietyPoliticsEthics]
dc.title‘An altruistic act to give back’—the social work practice educator role in Ireland: motivation, satisfaction, challenges, and supportsen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)
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