MA Social Work

Year of entry: 2024

Course unit details:
Safeguarding Children, Adults and their Families

Course unit fact file
Unit code SOWK60311
Credit rating 15
Unit level FHEQ level 7 – master's degree or fourth year of an integrated master's degree
Teaching period(s) Semester 2
Available as a free choice unit? No

Overview

The unit will offer a wide-ranging and in-depth exploration of the key issues involved in abuse of children and adults, and its potential impact on development, health, well being and behaviour. Students will be introduced to the significance of changing and contested policy discourses forming the response to safeguarding issues. On this basis the unit will enable students to develop a critical understanding of current legal and practice frameworks for safeguarding within the wider context of adults and children’s services; and to engage critically with good practice in relation to prevention and intervention, empowerment and protection, and multi-agency working. Research, theory, ethics, skills and implications for practice will be central considerations throughout the unit, enabling students to develop critical understanding, reflective practice and ethical capability in this area of social work

Aims

  • To provide students with the opportunity to develop a critical understanding and reflective engagement with contemporary safeguarding issues, policies and practice in relation to children, young people (the group hereafter referred to as ‘children’) and vulnerable adults.
  • To enable students to develop a critical understanding of current legal and practice frameworks for safeguarding within the wider context of adults and children’s services.
  • To enable students to develop practice skills in relation to working with uncertainty and risk with a range of relevant service user groups

Teaching and learning methods

This course unit will comprise of a mixture of direct face-to-face teaching, video work, seminar work, small group work and online learning.

Knowledge and understanding

  • Critically examine and evaluate child and adult protection and safeguarding law, policy and practice in relation to children and vulnerable adults.
  • Develop a critical and comprehensive understanding of the different social work roles within safeguarding and protection practice – prevention, identification of abuse, assessment, investigation,protection.
  • Develop a critical understanding of the nature of abuse and its impact on children and adults
  • Critically explore and analyse a holistic range of theory and research on the causes of abuse, including social and political dimensions, eg. The connections between social inequalities, deprivation and harm.
  • Demonstrate a critical understanding of ethical considerations including cultural challenges, diversity and cultural relativism; balancing harm (to act or not to act);choice, empowerment, independence and risk
  • Demonstrate a critical and comprehensive understanding of inter-professional and multi-disciplinary perspectives, roles and responsibilities.

Intellectual skills

  • Critically reflect on definitional and conceptual issues in the field of vulnerability, protection and harm.
  • Understand the complexity of working with families and individuals who are difficult to engage, and the uncertainty of working with risk in this context.
  • Ability to critically appraise research in order to inform current practice.

Practical skills

  • The ability to communicate sensitively and ethically with people who may have experienced abuse.
  • Ability to undertake risk assessments and understand risk and vulnerability in context, including risk and protective factors.
  • Refine skills in written and oral communication in relation to complex ideas and practice dilemmas.

Transferable skills and personal qualities

  • Ability to independently gather, synthesise and organise materials from various sources ( library, electronic and online resources)and to critically evaluate its significance.
  • Capacity to make oral presentations.
  • Ability to work collegiately and effectively with others as members of a group/team.
  • Ability to recognise and critically reflect on how their own personal values and experience may impact on all aspects of professional practice, including the social worker/service user relationship.
  • Further develop and enhance skills in effective communication to a range of audiences in a variety of settings.

Assessment methods

Method Weight
Other 15%
Written assignment (inc essay) 85%

The remaining 15% of the unit mark will be assessed through multiple choice questions.

Feedback methods

Students will normally have the opportunity to receive feedback on formative work submitted prior to the summative assessment. Other feedback opportunities will also be available in class and online discussion boards. Online feedback is provided in Grademark. Provisional feedback based on internal marking will be made available prior to the Exam Board on the basis that these marks are yet to be ratified at the Exam Board and therefore may be subject to change. A standard feedback mechanism in Grademark is utilised across all postgraduate programmes within the School which provides detailed and constructive feedback on each component and aspect of assessment and identifies areas of strength and those aspects which could be enhanced.

Student feedback is obtained through open discussion forums on blackboard, in class discussions, via formal University unit evaluation forms and also qualitative, in house evaluations at the end of the unit. 

Recommended reading

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 36
Tutorials 2
Independent study hours
Independent study 112

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Gary Norton Unit coordinator

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