Student placements

Develop professional practice skills and grow as a person with our student learning placements.

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Work placements for university and TAFE students

Our student placement program provides a unique opportunity for university and TAFE students to develop professional practice skills and grow as a person. The program includes comprehensive orientation, extensive training, supervision and site visits to selected program areas.

Our placements

Thank you for your interest in our student placement program. We no longer accept applications for 2023 as we are fully booked. Please feel free to contact us again from January 2024.

We offer work integrated learning placements to students who need to gain field experience related to their area of study, including:

Social Work (Bachelor or Masters)
Certificate IV (Ageing, Disability, Home and Community, Mental Health)
Allied Health disciplines
Diploma of Community Services, Community Development, or Mental Health

My time at Sacred Heart Mission was not only beneficial to my studies, I believe it made me a better person and perhaps more tolerant toward the particular needs of the wider community.

Preparing for the workforce

Our practical placements help prepare students for the workforce by providing:

Valuable learning opportunities within the areas of aged care, disability, mental health, trauma informed care, women’s services and homelessness
The opportunity to practice what you have learned in an appropriate, real-life setting
Support from our Student Placement Officer and be part of our student leaning unit
Access to experienced staff who are willing to share their wisdom.

We give our students comprehensive orientation, supervision, and a safe working environment.

For more information, please email us at studentplacements@sacredheartmission.org.

Two intakes

Our placement program is divided into two intakes:

Semester 1 – Diploma and Certificate IV qualifications
To be considered you must complete the Student Placement request form below.
Semester 2 – Final year social work (Bachelor/Masters) qualifications
Sacred Heart Mission has existing partnerships/MOUs with university Social Work departments.
We will only consider offers from Placement Coordinators. Please ask your Field Educator to email their query directly to studentplacements@sacredheartmission.org.

Hear from Ned, a student placement from RMIT

Ned, student: At about 27 I thought what’s practical, what’s something I’m good at, what I care about, and I sort of came to a Master of Social Work.

As part of a Master of Social Work or any social work degree, you have to do 1000 hours of placement. So that’s something that the Work Integrated Learning Program really assists you with, it creates the online forum where you can apply for that easily and see what’s going to be suited for you. And it’s all about just setting you up to join the workforce.

My placement was with Sacred Heart Mission and it was fantastic. I remember just feeling so welcome in my first week there.

Trevor, Workforce Development Manager: If we look at the students who come to Sacred Heart Mission from RMIT, the biggest impression that they leave is, they’re just amazing. They come to us job-ready.

Ned: I felt welcome and towards the end of it, they asked me to come in for a job interview. Two weeks later, they offered me the job, and I’ve been there for 10 months.