Social Work BSc (Hons)

Academic skills when studying away from your home country can differ due to cultural and language differences in teaching and assessment practices. This module is designed to support your transition in the use and practice of technical language and subject specific skills around assessments and teaching provision in your chosen subject. The overall aim of this module is to develop your abilities to read and study effectively for academic purposes; to develop your skills in analysing and using source material in seminars and academic writing and to develop your use and application of language and communications skills to a higher level.

The topics you will cover on the module include:

• Understanding assignment briefs and exam questions.
• Developing academic writing skills, including citation, paraphrasing, and summarising.
• Practising ‘critical reading’ and ‘critical writing’
• Planning and structuring academic assignments (e.g. essays, reports and presentations).
• Avoiding academic misconduct and gaining credit by using academic sources and referencing effectively.
• Listening skills for lectures.
• Speaking in seminar presentations.
• Presenting your ideas
• Giving discipline-related academic presentations, experiencing peer observation, and receiving formative feedback.
• Speed reading techniques.
• Developing self-reflection skills.

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 from beginning level practice to the end of the second year of professional social work education. The main topics and subject areas you will study include understanding professional organisations and contexts and collaborative working. There are 27 placement days attached to this module where you will have the opportunity to develop knowledge and skills as developing social work practitioners with service users, carers and other professionals in practice settings. You will demonstrate your professional development through applying your learning on professional practice within differing contexts and by taking responsibility for your conduct, practice and learning within a designated setting. The module will build on the theme of developing your critical self-awareness to enable you to develop your skills in the area of relationship building and collaborative working with a range of stakeholders in a variety of organisations. 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 who is able to respond to changing economic, social, political and organisational contexts. You will have opportunities to build skills of mentoring undertake a peer mentoring role and be involved in the development of others in a supportive environment. The module teaching will provide you with the preparatory foundation for your practice as a professional which will be enhanced in level 5.

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 service users. You will examine a range of assessment and intervention methods and approaches within the social work process. Through a range of teaching and learning strategies you will be encouraged to explain and distinguish between the various intervention approaches and models of assessment. The module aims to orientate you to the breadth of social work processes, as well as the language and key terms. This module builds upon learning at Level 4 and aims to support you to extend and develop further practice skills in preparation for your first assessed practice learning opportunity.

Through this module you will explore frameworks and models for practice to enable you to develop your ability to respond to practice situations. A focus on specific forms of intervention and techniques will enable depth of knowledge to be gained, and core skills to develop, that will be applied in practice learning.

The syllabus will include:

• Models of assessment, gathering information and child observation
• Methods of intervention including planning and review.
• Enhanced communication skills and self-awareness in practice situations
• Management of self during assessments taking into account risks and assets.
• Incorporating personal and professional boundaries into practice
• Applying and using specific frameworks for assessment and models for intervention.
• Presenting and managing self within situations where conflict is an issue.

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 (developed at Level 4) to a capacity to critically apply this knowledge in interpreting risk and promoting resilience. You will explore ways of using evidence to inform decision-making and intervention, and draw on techniques for appraising the usefulness of evidence. This will inform your consideration of resilience and risk as key themes for understanding 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 Skills and Critical Reflection” module (SW0422). 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 knowledge construction by way of understanding the social work research process, and alongside this, further developing your ability to appraise the quality of different forms of evidence. The curriculum will therefore focus on research methodologies and different elements of the research process. 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 life long learning. The assignments will invite you to explore and critically appraise research based knowledge in an area of your interest relevant to social work practice.