Global Utilities

La Trobe University
Health Sciences

Policy - Faculty Academic Policies and Procedures

8. Clinical and Professional Education

8.1 Student Placement Agreements

The primary purpose of the Student Placement Agreement is to protect participating agencies and students on placement. The Faculty offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses in a range of disciplines including Health Information Management, Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Orthoptic and Ophthalmic Sciences, Physiotherapy, Podiatry, Prosthetics and Orthotics, Social Work and Speech Pathology. Of course, placements at any particular time depends upon their availability at individual Agencies and Departments.

The Student Placement Agreement outlines the responsibilities of both the Agency and the University including supervision and the facilities available to students. It provides the Agency with information regarding the University’s insurance coverage and formalises the commitment of the University to ensure students maintain confidentiality and professionalism.

The Faculty has a Student Placement Agreement Proforma that was originally developed in conjunction with the then Victorian Hospitals Association, and was drafted by the Office of the University Solicitor. Many agreements differ from the Proforma as individual Agencies request changes and additions. Any changes that an Agency requires must be approved by the Office of the University Solicitor. Consequently, some agreements can take quite some time to negotiate and Schools/Departments should keep this in mind when sending students to an Agency that has no agreement with the Faculty.

Currently the Faculty of Health Sciences is producing a single “generic” Student Placement Agreement to cover all disciplines within the Faculty. This agreement does not only cover a single Agency but covers any other locations that are administered by that Agency such as in the case of the hospital Networks. A particular Agency may not offer all of our disciplines but for the purposes of this agreement, it does not matter.

A copy of the Student Placement Agreement Proforma is available on the FO-Public fileserver (fhs-public\Clinical Education Agreements\Current proformas\Proforma-New agreement.doc).

In many cases, an Agency may wish to make changes to this agreement or may even wish to use their own. When such cases occur, the agreement must be sent to the Office of the University Solicitor for approval, especially if the student is to be placed overseas. The process of obtaining agreements with agencies is overseen by the Academic Officer.

It should be noted that Schools should forward any agreements from health agencies to the Faculty Office for negotiation and should not seek to negotiate placement agreements themselves.

8.1.1 Policy

  1. Prior to a student being sent on placement, the School/Department responsible for the course will ensure that the Faculty has a Student Placement Agreement with the Agency to which the student is being sent.
  2. All Schools/Department within the Faculty will request agreements using the Clinical Education Database (CED) within the timelines determined for the implementation of the CED. Those that do not have access to the database such as the Rural Health and Human Services Unit and Nursing at Wodonga should use the appropriate Proforma.
  3. The Faculty will negotiate a Student Placement Agreement with all Agencies who offer to accept students for professional experience placement.
  4. The Schools/Departments of the Faculty will negotiate with the Agencies to accept students for placement and will provide the Faculty Office with the information required to implement a Student Placement Agreement.
  5. The Faculty Office will negotiate with Agencies to implement a generic Student Placement Agreement
  6. If, in the opinion of the School/Department, an Agency is likely to withdraw their offer because of the requirement to sign a Student Placement Agreement, the School/Department will request that the Faculty Office negotiate a ‘Letter of Exchange’. This should only be in the case of smaller practitioners.

The procedure for requesting and implementing an agreement is as follows:

  1. The administrative or academic staff member of each discipline who is responsible for student placements should check the CED to ascertain whether the Faculty has an agreement with an Agency where they wish to send a student on placement.
    1. if the CED shows that a generic agreement is in place or being negotiated, the School/Department may send students to the Agency
    2. If the CED shows that no agreement exists or is being negotiated, or that the agreement does not cover that discipline, the School/Department must request that the Faculty Office negotiate an agreement.
  2. The School/Department must request an agreement using the CED and will need to enter the relevant information that allows an agreement to be negotiated such as the name of the Agency, the CEO of the Agency, and the name of the Agency’s Legal Entity.
  3. The request for a new Student Placement Agreement should be made at least one month prior to the student attending the placement to allow time for the agreement to be negotiated.
  4. The School/Department enters the required data and uses the automatic email function of the database to email ClinEdHealth@latrobe.edu.au the request.
  5. The Faculty Office receives the email and uses the information from the database to draft a Student Placement Agreement or Letter of Exchange with the relevant Agency.
  6. A covering letter from the Dean accompanies two signed copies of the Student Placement Agreement which is sent to the CEO of the Agency. In the case of the Letter of Exchange, two signed copies from the Dean are sent to the CEO or equivalent.
  7. The Agency signs both copies of the Student Placement Agreement or Letter of Exchange, keeps a copy for their own records and returns a copy to the Faculty Office for our records.
  8. Progress of the negotiation can be followed by Schools/Departments by viewing the tracking section of the Contracts page of the CED.
  9. If Schools/Departments wish to enter an Agency into the database for the purpose of a mailout but do not wish for the Faculty Office to negotiate an agreement at that time, Schools/Departments should link that Agency to a ‘dummy’ contract called ZZ Temporary Contract.

Revised September 2003