SOCIAL WORK at Canterbury Christ Church University

Social work is an inspiring and challenging profession that provides opportunities to make a real difference to the lives of vulnerable children and adults.

You will be taught by experienced academics from a diverse range of practice and research backgrounds. We have excellent relationships with practitioners who also teach on the course and provide high quality placements. Our teaching strategies include a high level of tutor/student contact time and individually designed skills development days.

You will explore areas including:

• law and policy
• safeguarding adults and children
• understanding human development
• critical thinking.

Why social work?

The teaching of social work is long established at Canterbury Christ Church with taught sessions taking place on the main campus, centrally located in the historic, bustling city of Canterbury which has easy access to public transport. The programme is focused on your development as a competent and capable professional to meet the challenging demands of social work in a changing environment both nationally and globally. 

You will be equipped with skills to work effectively with service users and recognise the importance of interprofessional working in meeting the needs of social work recipients. The programme is generic, enabling those completing successfully to work in a range of settings meeting the diverse needs of service users, families and carers. 

You will be taught by a knowledgeable teaching team with varied local, national and international experiences. Members of the social work teaching team are research active, have experience in consultancy and publishing, and they come from a range of settings which ensures that theory is applied and integrated within local and international realities of social work practice. 

The social work team has strong links with a range of practice settings and local service user groups. They play a significant part in enhancing your learning, teaching and placement experience to support your future employability. Placement experience is designed to give you an opportunity to interact and learn in varied settings with qualified social workers and other professionals. 

What will i study?

Your studies will focus on providing you with the relevant skills, knowledge and values for evidence informed social work practice with people across the life span in various settings.

You will study a range of modules, eleven in total. In year one, you will study 4 social work modules. In year two, you will study a further four modules: Social Work Theory  and Interventions, one module that introduces you to being a research minded social worker, a law and policy module and practice module for your 70­ day placement. In year three, your final year, you will study three double modules. One specialist module will cover mental health, adult and children and families’ social work and the assessment will be linked to your placement experience. The dissertation module will allow you to explore an area of social work in depth and a practice module for your 100­day placement.

By the end of the programme you should be able to:

• Confidently utilise acquired IT skills in a variety of settings.
• Communicate effectively with varied service user groups and carers within multi professional and multi­agency context while understanding the complexity of social work practice.
• Utilise your critical and analytical skills to analyse research that informs your practice.
• Work confidently in problem solving while recognising the challenges of social work within a globalised world.
• Consider ecological perspectives which provides mutual benefit between people and their environments.
• Demonstrate informed and critical use of skills, processes and professional authority, at an appropriate level for a newly qualified practitioner, in supporting and safeguarding individuals, within families, groups, communities and interprofessional context.
• Appraise and apply knowledge of relevant legislation and policy to practice situations, whilst promoting professional social work values.
• Acquire and demonstrate resilience, critical reflection, and capacity to use supervision and guidance for transformative learning. 
• Adopt anti­discriminatory and anti­oppressive practice.