Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Expectations and ResponsibilitiesÂ
When offering a placement and making an offer, there needs to be understanding and agreement between you as the Placement Provider, the student(s) going on placement, the academic member of staff responsible for supporting the student’s academic and professional development and the School of Health Practice Learning Team, as to the expectations of the learning experience.
As a minimum we would expect the following to be agreed prior to placement:
- Our student(s) will need to know who will be responsible for their line management during the placement, or alternative contact who can help complete the process. We expect both the placement organisation and academic course team to provide full contact details of the relevant individuals/teams.
- Understanding learning outcomes for courses - individual handbook contains this information and academic practice leads can support with guidance and further detail
- Complete necessary paperwork, which will be either contracting or agreeing to terms and conditions included H&S and Inclusion aspects, more information provided below
- Placement Induction to take place shortly after starting placement for the placement organisation to ensure they go through the organisation's processes and polices
- Ongoing reporting of issues to be made between all the parties. For further information, please view our Raising Concerns webpage
During the approval process, as a minimum you will receive a Pre Practice Learning Form which will include a Health & Safety and Indemnity Declaration
This process should not replace any requirements on your part to comply with any applicable Health & Safety legislation. The university would expect the organisation to have Health & Safety Policies in place and to carry out Risk Assessments for all work involving significant risks to health or safety of workers. Organisations are also expected to have insurance which will cover the student(s) if they have an accident at work or if they injure someone else or their property whilst working for you - for example insurances related to Employer Liability, Public Liability, Professional Indemnity etc. Adequate supervision needs to be in place to ensure our student will be supervised at work and provided with information about safety precautions where necessary. Please identify with academic course team any mandatory training requirements, to supplement any in-house training.
Additionally for overseas placements a further assessment is required to be completed by Academic Course Team supported by Practice Learning Team. Students must also be register for University Travel Insurance and have the Chubb App downloaded. Also travel security alerts through UKGOV foreign travel advice, this will ensure students receive the most up to date alerts and guidance in relation to their placement location.
At Leeds Beckett University, we are committed to fostering a safe, respectful and inclusive environment for everyone in our community, this includes students, colleagues, and third parties such as visitors, contractors, and partner organisations.
Bullying, harassment, abuse, and sexual misconduct have no place in our university. We commit never to use legally binding non-disclosure agreements to silence those people with the courage to call out this behaviour.
We are actively working to prevent these behaviours and to ensure that clear, compassionate and effective systems are in place for reporting and responding when concerns arise.
We have strengthened our approach in line with the Office for Students' (OfS) new Condition of Registration E6, which outlines how higher education providers must take robust, proactive steps to protect all students from harassment and sexual misconduct.
Our work goes beyond compliance, it reflects our values and our dedication to creating a campus culture where respect, dignity and accountability are central.
We will gather continuous feedback through:
- Monitoring and analysis of data, to understand where more targeted intervention may be considered
- Obtaining colleague and student feedback and engagement on our training material
- Holding lessons learned sessions following resolved investigations related to harassment and/or sexual misconduct
- Regularly reviewing our policies, processes and training
We take all disclosures and reports seriously, provide access to timely support, and ensure that all members of our community are informed about their rights, responsibilities, and the pathways available to raise concerns. We also work closely with external partners and support services to ensure joined-up safeguarding and wellbeing practices across our networks.
As a placement providers you are provided with a dedicated resource pack to ensure a minimum level of understanding of the university's policies and processes to preventing and addressing bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct when visiting or working across our campus and with our community.
During the approval process, you will be asked to confirm that your organisation shares these expectations and that you have robust policies and procedures to deal with complaints.
Please visit our new microsite for all the details you need which includes comprehensive information on the university's policies, reporting procedures, training and the support that is available to them.
Where the issue relates to partner staff or services, we suggest students initially discuss the issue with a member of the University Course team. The School of Health Practice Learning Raising Concerns process can be ulitised by Practice Partners and Students.
But students can also report concerns to the university via Support Report Respect, and/or directly via the partner's reporting mechanism, but any investigative and disciplinary process in relation to partner staff will be pursuant to the partner's processes and policies. In either case, support will be available from the university throughout the process.
In the School of Health we are focusing on race equality and cultural sensitivity and in our EDI group we are looking at practice partner engagement with anti-racist leaders and inclusive practice in a working group led by Mark Williams.
Our latest focus has been thriving on placement and working with the WY ICB we have invited all students and PE to participate in the Race Equality Charter week webinar, link below. We aim to foster cultural and behavioural change and have looked at this both with staff groups in our SOH away days and with student engagement with the ICB Webinar - Thriving on Placement webinar which took place on Monday.
Other resources which we are promoting are available on the NHS learning hub website.
The university's EDI team have been involved in our staff anti-racist leadership session with Cherill Waterson who leads the webinar above and disability services with our focus on inclusive practice and language in our away days.
We are also promoting a learner passport template which allows students to share their learning preferences and adjustments with practice partners and associated webinar. For further information, please view the learner passport presentation.
Our focus in the EDI group is promoting inclusivity and race equity for all learners, so less of an alignment to national events and more of a focus on student success for every learner.
