PG Dip/MA Social Work (Children & Families)

• Introduction to and Readiness for Direct Practice in Social Work (for Children and Families in Social Work): The aim of this unit is to enable you to gather and present evidence of readiness to enter your first practice placement, using reflection and analysis of how your study has helped you understand the role of the social worker, and the importance of using knowledge in future practice.

• Human Development Across the Life Course: The aim of the unit is for you to develop knowledge and understanding of human development theories and apply them to practice situations. This will enable you to understand how human development theories are applicable to social work practice and to enable you to develop critical knowledge to explore the theories relevance to different people and situations.  

• Law for Social Work with Children and Families: You will understand powers and duties as a Social Worker in the statutory context. You will gain knowledge of Human Rights that underpin English law and Social Work practice standards, as stipulated by the regulator. The unit also develops skills and knowledge for professional decision making in the context of English law, whilst taking into account ethics and values in Social Work practice. 

• Applying Social Work Models and Methods for Social Work with Children and Families: The main aim of this unit is to assist you in developing assessment, intervention, ethical, reflective and collaborative skills in social work. These skills are essential for social workers to provide holistic support to individuals, families and communities.  

• Working with Adults, Parents and Carers: The unit contextualises social work through reference to historical and contemporary social work practice issues. This includes approaches to intervention, the legislative framework which mandates practice, professional accountability, applying critical thinking, working with risk and complexity, safeguarding adults, and the importance of evidence-informed practice.

• Working with Children and their Families:The aim of this unit is to develop knowledge and understanding of the social work role in the context of professional practice with children and their families, including legal and policy frameworks, responsibilities, professional accountability and key knowledge and skills. There will be an emphasis on keeping the child at the centre of practice and ensuring that the child’s voice is always heard. The full range of risks to children will be explored, including the impact of poverty and inequality, parental mental ill health, substance misuse, domestic abuse and health and disability, on parenting.

• First Substantive Placement for Social Work with Children and their Families: You will gain essential practice experiences required in meeting the regulations of the professional body.

• Final Substantive Placement for Social Work with Children and Families: You will gain essential practice experiences required in meeting the regulations of the professional body.

If you would like to complete the full Master's, you will complete the above units as well as two additional units: 

Service Improver Project (SIP): The project embraces both traditional and non-traditional forms of intellectual inquiry and relevant and effective practical management. It demonstrates your ability, within a complex professional context, to create knowledge which expands or redefines existing knowledge and/or develops new approaches to service improvement. Thus, the SIP unit provides an opportunity: to undertake an intellectually challenging and in-depth SIP relevant to your complex professional context. To apply well-grounded research and evaluation methods, service development skills and evaluate any subsequent change or improvement and to critically reflect on and evaluate the impact of the SIP activity.  

and 

Dissertation: This unit aims to raise your awareness and usage of research that relates to social work practice. You will select and research topics which contribute to the knowledge and understanding of social work practice and application to evidence based social work practice.You will demonstrate skills in critical assessment and evaluation of research relevant to social work and develop skills relevant to the application of research to enhanced social work practice.

Please note: Only the fees for the Postgraduate Diploma in Social Work are funded by the Department for Education. Students that continue their study to achieve the MA will need to self-fund the Master's units. 

You are required to undertake a 170-day placement split into two placement windows during the PG Dip, providing an opportunity to apply your acquired knowledge and skills in the workplace. Placements are provided within settings applicable to social work and are allocated by a matching process.

Programme specifications provide definitive records of the University's taught degrees in line with Quality Assurance Agency requirements. Every taught course leading to a BU Award has a programme specification which describes its aims, structure, content and learning outcomes, plus the teaching, learning and assessment methods used.

Whilst every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the programme specification, the information is liable to change to take advantage of exciting new approaches to teaching and learning as well as developments in industry. If you have been unable to locate the programme specification for the course you are interested in, it will be available as soon as the latest version is ready. Alternatively please contact us for assistance.

Students are expected to have relevant experience in social work and/or social care and show that they have learnt from this experience. The longer and more varied that experience, the better. Examples of the sort of experience that candidates often have are:

• Employment as a carer in a residential home
• Being a volunteer in an agency working with young offenders
• Paid or voluntary work in a day centre for people with physical disabilities, learning disabilities, or mental health problems
• Work on summer play schemes and/or after school clubs
• Personal experience as a service user or carer.

All successfully shortlisted applicants are invited to interview. This will demonstrate whether you show the necessary insight into social work, as well as the motivation and commitment to become a social worker.

Essential criteria

You will need:

• a degree-level qualification in any discipline except social work from a UK higher education institute or an approved overseas equivalent
• a minimum 2:2 (level 6) degree qualification, for example, an honours degree or a graduate certificate
• to have GCSEs in English or English Language and Mathematics at grade C or above, or the new grade 4 and above (or an approved equivalent)
• to have completed your degree, final year students are not eligible to apply
• to show evidence of your qualifications (such as certificates) and be able to upload this to the application form – this is mandatory for overseas qualifications (please ensure you have relevant electronic versions to hand prior to submitting your application)
• to have a minimum of 6 months full-time (or equivalent) direct experience of working with vulnerable children, young people and/or families/carers or adults, either in a paid or voluntary capacity
• to live in England
• a driving licence and use of a vehicle in some locations, or to confirm that you’ll be able to travel for work if you do not have a vehicle
• to complete an Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check ​

The skills and experience you’ll need to demonstrate

You’ll need to:

• have the emotional resilience to become an effective social worker
• understand social work theory and research
• be aware of the risk indicators of different forms of harm to children
• demonstrate intuition and logic in decision-making
• show the ability to record accurate child and family assessments
• have an understanding of the Knowledge and Skills Statements for child and family social workers - which all applicants will be assessed against
• be familiar with the Professional Capabilities Framework for social workers (entry level)

You can find details of the international qualifications we accept, and what level of study they apply to, on our entry requirements for non-UK students' page.

Please see below some examples of the qualifications for entry:

• India: Bachelor’s degree (three years) from a recognised HE institution with a minimum overall result of 55%  
• Nigeria: Bachelor's degree from a recognised institution with a minimum classification of 2:4  
• China: Chinese Bachelor's (Honours) degree from a recognised higher education institution with 65% or above  
• Turkey: Bachelor’s degree (Lisans Diplomasi - four years) with a minimum overall GPA of 2.3/4.0  
• Ghana: Bachelor's degrees from University of Ghana or Legon with a grade of 2.00 or above, or from Cape Coast with a grade 2.5 or above  
• USA: US Bachelor’s degree (four years), with a 2.5 GPA or above  

English language requirements 

If English is not your first language, you will need to provide evidence that you can understand English to a satisfactory level. English language requirements for this course are normally:

• IELTS (academic) 7.0 overall with a minimum of 6.5 in each component, or equivalent.

View further information about our English language requirements.

Bournemouth University International College offers a number of pre-sessional English and preparatory programmes to prepare international students for postgraduate study at BU. Admission to the degree is guaranteed on successful completion of your course to the required level.

You can also find further details of the international qualifications we accept, and what level of study they apply to, on our international entry requirements page