Out of the too hard basket: Promoting student's safety in cooperative education

There is general agreement in the literature on the essential role of university field educators and agency-based staff in preparing students for witnessing and experiencing violence during workplace-based placements and supporting them when it takes place. Models for promoting student¿s safety as well as their recovery from violent incidents while in the field usually emphasize the responsibilities of these individuals. Subsequently, frameworks aimed at reducing and responding to violence towards students in cooperative education typically focus on a narrow range of strategies that include university faculty policy and procedures, on-campus teaching modules, training for university field educators, and consultation with agencies regarding their safety policies, procedures and training. Such approaches fail to take into account reports that university and agency field educators are often under-resourced, overworked and subject to violence themselves or do not see addressing student¿s safety in the field as their responsibility. Suggested measures also generally overlook the critical role of other key stakeholders. This paper argues that efforts aimed at addressing violence in work-integrated learning should be designed on models of violence prevention that move away from the individualized responses and recognise as fundamental, integrated, collaborative and coordinated institutional arrangements. There is a need to develop a national framework in which the responsibilities of tertiary institutions, governments, professional associations and employers to adequately govern, resource and equip academic and industry field education staff, so they are in a position to meet their pedagogical, legal and ethical obligations towards students, are paramount.