BA Hons Social Work

This module is designed to equip you with the skills and knowledge required for a proactive approach to learning and study.

It aims to help you reflect on your own approaches to learning, understand the role of academic enquiry and research within this.

You'll consider how perceptions of learning arise and how they influence the process and outcome of learning.

This module introduces and explores social science theories and approaches which are relevant to contemporary social work, drawing in particular from sociology and social policy.

The module also has an emphasis on research awareness. For example, public discourses around social policy and interpreting research data relating to issues such as poverty and inequality. You're introduced to an appreciation of how research is used in public policy. 

This module will introduce you to the key socio-psychological theories informing an understanding of human development and behaviour. Areas covered will include individual, group and community factors such as identity, family, disability and culture.

You'll develop an understanding of the process of development for individuals and groups. This will include discussion of the key factors in promoting resilience and those which may inhibit healthy growth. 

This module will prepare you for work with individuals, families and communities. It will equip you with the skills necessary to develop a critical understanding of the complex interactions between individuals, groups and wider social contexts.

The module will assist you to identify the social processes that can result in inequalities within communities and will build on the sociological and psychological theories introduced in year one of the course. The module will consider the ways in which sources of inequality can be challenged at an individual, community and structural level.

This module provides you with a historical overview of the development of social work values and ethics. It introduces you to core ethical concepts in social work and encourages you to understanding the ethical dimensions of choice, decision-making, interventions and the use of professional discretion.

The module will provide you with a thorough understanding of the legal basis for social work intervention and the significance of the relationships with statutory social services and the independent social services sector.

It will enable you to understand the social worker’s role as statutory agent with duties and responsibilities to protect the public and uphold the law by providing you with a firm grounding in the legislation that underpins and impinges on your practice.

This module examines the delivery models and organisational structures that underpin social work services. A key issue to be addressed will be the extent to which changes in organisation and structures facilitate the role and value base of social work.

The module will also take account of the increasing emphasis on inter-professional working across public services. It will examine the evidence base for pursuing inter-professional working and the challenges it poses for the voice and values of social work to be heard amongst other professional disciplines.

This module is intended to equip you with the practice skills and theory required in order to take Assessed Practice 1.

The module will provide you with the opportunity to rehearse skills fundamental to sound and appropriate professional relationships It's the primary means by which you're assessed as competent to undertake practice learning in a service delivery setting.

You will undertake a 10 day observational placement in a social work agency to integrate learning from previous modules. This placement contributes towards your readiness for practice in year 3.

Social workers practise in a diverse range of settings. This module comprises a series of options which enable students to develop a deeper, critical understanding of social work practice in a particular setting, such as criminal justice, community care, residential childcare or children and families.

Social workers are required to develop skills in assessing and managing risk and this module offers a range of learning experiences to facilitate this development. There will be a thorough examination of the concepts of risk and protection.

Students will be encouraged to construct their own understandings of what constitutes acceptable risk and how such definitions might arise. The social and political dimensions of risk and protection will be explored using material contained in public enquiry reports over the past 30 years.

Students will be required to consider the transferability of models and methods of risk assessment and risk management across service user groups.

The University recognises the additional breadth of learning which comes from students being afforded the opportunity to select a module from outside the range of prescribed and mandatory modules within their chosen programme of study.

In year 2, semester 2, students are, therefore, enabled and required to select a module from the extensive range of elective modules offered as part of the BA degree in Humanities and Social Sciences. This will allow you to try a subject that you’ve not studied before or develop your knowledge further in an area of social work.

The module aims to provide you with an opportunity to understand the range of roles undertaken by social workers within an organisational context and how social work/care organisations function and fulfil their duties to individuals, children, parents, families and extended families, carers, groups and communities, professionals and organisations.

This will be undertaken with the module ‘Practice Learning 1: Social Work Practice’, as part of an 80-day placement in a social work agency.

This module is intended to provide you with opportunities to develop skills, values, knowledge and competence in a specified range of key components of social work practice, and to integrate this with learning across all prior modules undertaken on the course. 

This will be undertaken with ‘Practice Learning 1: Organisational Context’, as part of an 80 day placement in a social work agency

This module aims to encourage you to take a reflective approach to research and its links to social work policy and practice and to develop research-mindedness as a requirement of ethical and effective practice.

The module will communicate the importance of research in contributing to continuing professional development and will prepare you for undertaking your dissertation in Year 4 of the course.

The process of globalisation has resulted in an increasing diversity in Scotland’s population. There's a need for social work practice which recognises effectively this diversity and difference and the marked adversity or disadvantage and discrimination faced by some migrants. 

This module builds on learning from practice learning 1 (year 3). It provides you with a more in-depth understanding of the roles undertaken by social workers within an organisational context and how social work/care organisations function and fulfil their duties to individuals, children, parents, families and extended families, carers, groups and communities, professionals and organisations.

This will be undertaken with the module ‘Practice Learning 2: Social Work Practice’, as part of an 80-day placement in a social work agency.

This module will provide you with a range of opportunities to develop skills, values, knowledge and competence of social work practice in a specified range of key components of social work practice. It builds on learning from Practice Learning 1 modules and integrates this with knowledge gained across all prior modules undertaken on the course

This will be undertaken with the module ‘Practice Learning 2: Organisational Context’, as part of an 80-day placement in a social work agency.

This module aims to help you consolidate and develop the knowledge, understanding and skills required to engage in professional development at a range of levels after qualification. It provides an opportunity to track, record and review your individual development (a process which began in the module ‘Preparing for Lifelong Learning’ and continued in activities through Years 2 and 3 of the course) and use this a basis to prepare for the requirements of professional practice. Associated with this, this module requires that students place their personal development in the context of engagement in the social work agenda, considering ways in which the profession can improve its engagement with social need to further promote social change and social justice.

Social workers need analytical and research skills in order to plan, monitor and evaluate professional practice.

This module builds on learning in Social Research and Social Work by providing you with the opportunity to develop your research competence by undertaking a small scale research project on some aspect of social work for your honours dissertation.