ABSTRACT
When asked to evaluate the experience of their professional courses, most health and care professionals value practice learning experiences above theoretical input because actually working with service users was their reason for doing the course. ‘Practice learning essentially takes the specific practice event as the central source of learning. It also includes the cognitive and feeling aspects of that work as well as the behavioural’ (Evans, 1999, p. 4). These findings are supported in studies such as Glen and Leiba (2004) who review the research in this area which, although not conclusive, points us towards the likelihood that the learning opportunities with most positive outcomes take place in the practice setting. Active learning can be put into practice with students from different professions enabled to work with the same users in a community such as the Green Hill estate (see examples below). This approach enables them to address key aspects identified by Barr et al. (2005): self, team, group and organizational change as well as service user perspectives which, in our view, must be at the heart of any interprofessional learning.
