Social Work (Extended Degree) BSc (Hons)

You will develop your understanding of academic conventions in UK higher education aligned to your level of study, including expectations around critical analysis, structure, argumentation, evidencing, and referencing. The module focuses on developing communication strategies that will help you express your ideas clearly and coherently in written assignments and spoken activities. You will also reflect on your current academic and language skills and develop strategies for development ahead of your assessments.

You will learn through lectures and seminars facilitated by academic staff, many of whom are qualified and registered social workers and who have experience in practice from a range of settings. In addition to taught sessions, you will undertake 20 day skills in practice opportunity which will introduce you to the diverse range of services for people with care and support needs. This 20 day skills in practice opportunity will include a minimum of 2 days where you will shadow a registered social worker in a statutory setting. The skills in practice opportunity will provide you with an opportunity to put into practice knowledge and skills that you have acquired on the programme and will enable you to evidence capability of readiness for direct practice in accordance with the Professional Capability Framework (PCF)s and to work within Social Work England Professional Standards.

This module will prepare you to undertake direct practice with service users by enabling you to begin developing the practical skills you will need as a social worker. During the module, you will develop your core communication and interpersonal skills and the capacity to develop these further. Specific topics studied during the module include:

* Knowledge of self and the impact on communication
* Personal and professional boundaries as applied to simulated practice situations
* Verbal and non-verbal communication skills with a range of stakeholders
* Observation skills
* Written communication skills including professional letters, reports and case recording
* Interviewing skills, including listening, use of questioning techniques and telephone skills
* Assertiveness in professional contexts
* Managing conflict and effective negotiation
* Understanding service user perspectives including the impact of diversity upon communication
* Skills for reflection and evaluation in simulated practice situations

This first year module will introduce you to the topic of community and social work. You will learn about what we (and others) mean when we talk about ‘community’. During the module you will learn about key concepts such as participation, empowerment, and citizenship. You will explore the way professionals, volunteers and others work in and with communities to inspire social change. You will learn about the methods and community approaches they employ. The module will introduce you to the role of voluntary and community sector organisations and you will learn about concepts such as civil society and the third sector. You will learn about the policy context for these organisations and the contemporary issues these presently face.

You will also have the opportunity to learn from Educators by Experience about their experiences working in and with third sector organisations. Educators by Experience will share their experiences of how they have been involved in shaping services and organisations and how voluntary and community organisations support individuals and communities.
As a social work student this module will develop your knowledge about the range of organisations social workers work with and in. It will also provide you with skills to work in partnership with individuals, communities and third sector organisations using a range of community development approaches.

This module introduces the academic disciplines of social policy and law. This module will develop your understanding of national and international policy and legislation and the implications for social work. During the module you will discuss key concepts such as equality, human rights, and poverty. The module aims to provide you with a knowledge and understanding of key legislation relating to equality and human rights as well as relevant laws affecting social work practice. The module also aims to introduce you to social policy by discussing and contemporary social issues relating to social work, such as poverty, inequality, housing and health and social care and analysing the policies which aim to address these issues.

This module has been designed to provide you with underpinning knowledge and understanding regarding the various theories and conceptual perspectives that influence and inform social work practice. This module will support you to explore different approaches from sociology and psychology related to development across the life course, as well as the impact of social and psychological contexts to social work practice and service users. Through a range of teaching and learning strategies you will be encouraged to reflect on and explain how and why these theoretical perspectives are important to social work practice contributing therefore to your development as a student social worker and in your professional career.

This module aims to provide you with the initial foundations for acquisition and critical appraisal of knowledge with which to support your learning across the programme and evidence informed professional judgements in social work practice. These foundations will include the acquisition of academic information skills, key skills of critical reflection and an understanding of fundamental principles of social work research and knowledge creation and include consideration of relevant ethical issues. As well as being important in their own right, the development of academic skills have direct transferable benefits to placement and practice including record keeping, report writing and confidence in evidence informed presentations.

You will develop your understanding of academic conventions in UK higher education aligned to your level of study, including expectations around critical analysis, structure, argumentation, evidencing, and referencing. The module focuses on developing communication strategies that will help you express your ideas clearly and coherently in written assignments and spoken activities. You will also reflect on your current academic and language skills and develop strategies for development ahead of your assessments.

This module builds upon teaching themes and your learning at Level 4. In line with the requirements of the Practice Capabilities Framework (PCF), the module aims to support you to demonstrate your Professional Capability at end of First Placement level (British Association of Social Work, 2018). The module teaching will provide you with the foundation for your practice, with teaching focused on; completing the Level 5 Practice Learning Documentation (including a practice learning agreement), identification of learning to date and placement learning needs, supervision, direct observations, linking theory to practice and the opportunity to develop your self-awareness and critical reflection in practice.
As well as preparing you for practice, 70 placement days are attached to this module. Within the placement element, you will work with social work practitioners, people with care and support needs as well as other professionals and will be provided with learning opportunities to develop knowledge, skills and values enabling you to demonstrate the End of First Placement Professional Capabilities as well as an ability to work within Social Work England’s Professional Standards for Social Work.
Within a designated placement setting, you will take responsibility for your conduct, practice and learning as well as demonstrating your professional development by developing your skills of relationship building and undertaking interventions in collaboration with people with care and support needs.
The module will assist you in developing your appreciation of critical reflection on your own professional journey and viewing this as a key skill for becoming an effective practitioner, able to respond to changing service contexts.

This module has been designed to support you to recognise key concepts and underpinning knowledge about social work assessment and intervention to promote change with people who use care and support services. You will examine a range of assessment and intervention methods and approaches within the social work process, and you will be encouraged to explain and distinguish between the various intervention approaches and models of assessment through a range of teaching and learning strategies. The module aims to orientate you to the breadth of relevant social work knowledge and skills, as well as the language and key terms used within assessment and intervention processes. This module builds upon learning at Level 4 and aims to support you to extend and develop further practice -based skills which can then be applied within an assessed practice learning opportunity. The 70-day placement offered at Level 5 will afford you the opportunity to apply the knowledge, skills and values developed in this module in practice with people who use care and support services and other professionals in practice settings, whilst demonstrating professional practice informed by the PCF and Social Work England’s Professional Standards. A key standard that underpins this module is the use of assessment and intervention to promote the rights, strengths and wellbeing of people, families, and communities.
In accordance with Social Work England’s Professional Standards, the module will assist you in developing knowledge and skills for working in partnership with people who use care and support services to identify their strengths and needs, challenge disadvantage and promote rights. By assisting you to develop skills in recognising and using power and authority in the assessment process and developing knowledge of where interventions are necessary, the module will contribute towards ensuring that social work interventions are proportionate and in the best interests of people who use care and support services.

The purpose of this module is to enable you to understand and explore the detailed application of the law in relation to social work practice in statutory, voluntary and community contexts, and in which it applies to children, young people and adults when your role is concerned with safeguarding and promoting the well- being of individuals, families and carers. You will examine the interface between the law, social work values and social work ethics, in order to consider how legal and policy frameworks are used to promote and sometimes restrict the rights of service users. You will also have an opportunity to consider how the law may be used to promote anti–oppressive and inclusive practice. You will reflect upon the complexity of contemporary universal and national laws, and the social and political contexts within service delivery settings. You will also develop your learning in relation to values, diversity, law and social justice within the Professional Capabilities Framework

This module aims to support you to move from an ability to draw on an understanding of social and psychological factors in interpreting situations to apply critically such knowledge in interpreting risk and promoting resilience. You will explore ways of using evidence to inform decision-making and interventions and draw on techniques for appraising the usefulness of evidence. This will inform your consideration of resilience and risk as key themes for understanding human development and be contextualised by an understanding of theories for interpreting human development, such as attachment theory. This module will further equip you with the underpinning knowledge needed to work effectively with individuals from a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences.

This module aims to build on your learning from the Year 1 “Academic Information Skills and Critical Reflection” module (SW4005). It aims to support you to move from being able to locate and make an initial critical appraisal of knowledge towards a deeper understanding of different forms of research evidence and their value for social work practice. The curriculum will therefore focus on developing your skills in evaluating the quality and relevance of research. This is with a view to supporting your ability to inform your future practice with high quality and up to date evidence and engage in effective lifelong learning. The assignment will invite you to explore and critically appraise research-based knowledge in an area of your interest relevant to social work practice.

You will develop your understanding of academic conventions in UK higher education aligned to your level of study, including expectations around critical analysis, structure, argumentation, evidencing, and referencing. The module focuses on developing communication strategies that will help you express your ideas clearly and coherently in written assignments and spoken activities. You will also reflect on your current academic and language skills and develop strategies for development ahead of your assessments.

This module builds on your learning from previous years, deepening your self-awareness, providing further opportunity for reflection, and strengthening your ability to practise as a social worker by working collaboratively with people who use care and support services and other professionals. It will explore the process of assessment, planning, intervention, and evaluation in complex situations within the legal and policy framework, informed by the best available evidence for practice. The learning outcomes set out below reflect the broad range of knowledge, skills, and values that you will need to practise as a beginning social worker. In order to prepare for your final placement and thereafter your professional career, the teaching will concentrate on developing core skills for professional social work practice within a range of settings.
To support student’s further development and critical reflection, we will consider aspects of international social work, ecological social work, community work and development and the social work role in crisis and disaster management. These themes will/can be part of skills development practice Recall Days.

You will consolidate and extend learning on rights and values and diversity gained at Levels 4 and 5 and this will further prepare you for your final practice placement which commences following completion of teaching. You will consider the application of rights, values and diversity in relation to professional judgement and decision making in complex and changing statutory social work policy and practice contexts. Consideration of the perspectives of people who use care and support services is embedded in the curriculum. Furthermore, you will develop your understanding of the challenges to providing good quality service delivery and professional practice focussing on organisational, policy, individual and family issues.

This module aims to support your preparation for your final practice placement experience by further developing your knowledge and understanding of safeguarding across the life span and with reference to different individuals and groups who access social work support services. The module will assist you to develop your understanding of the interplay between relevant legislative frameworks and will encourage critical reflection on lessons learned from practice. Development of your knowledge of judgement and decision-making frameworks and inter-agency working practices are also areas of learning within the module. You will consider questions of participation, autonomy, and capacity in relation to children, young people and vulnerable adults making links to knowledge of human growth, development and associated safeguarding practices. You will consider questions of professional power, individual choice, methods of engagement and communication and the use of frameworks for social control as aspects of safeguarding practice.

The module aims to help you move from being able to identify, understand and describe knowledge to being able to critically analyse, synthesise and generate knowledge in the area of your chosen topic. By the end of this module, you will improve your ability to inform your future practice with high quality and up to date evidence and engage in effective lifelong learning.
This module focuses on the production of an evidence- based research project on a topic of your choice which is relevant to current social work practice and aligned to Social Work England Professional Standards.