Improving lives

Social work focuses on improving the lives and wellbeing of adults, children and families, and helping to protect the most vulnerable in society. You may have to make difficult decisions, sometimes when there are competing 'rights' and needs. You will work with a diverse range of individuals and groups to assist them through difficult circumstances. It could be helping them to address issues currently affecting their lives such as trauma, poverty or social disadvantage, organising specific support or making referrals to other services.

Preparing for a career as a social worker

Social work at Keele gives you a solid grounding in this professional area of study and supports the development of key professional skills and values ready for your future career as a Social Worker. The programme has been carefully designed to allow you to apply the course theory into a range of exciting, varied and specialist social work occupations in the UK and potentially internationally.

You will explore child, adult and family social work, and cover key elements of the profession including law, social policy, ethics and values, and the socio-economic contexts of social work. You will investigate the impact of inequality and the disadvantages in society around age, race and sexuality. You will examine anti-oppressive and non-discriminatory approaches in social work whilst developing your communication, assessment and decision making skills.

Social work at Keele is part of the Keele's highly rated School of Medicine, this provides you with a wealth of interprofessional and skills based learning opportunities. You will benefit from studying in an interdisciplinary environment learning alongside other health specialists such as nurses, occupational therapists, paramedic students GPs, paediatricians and psychiatrists.

Professional experience

We include 170 days of professional placement opportunities within the course, enabling you to put the theory you have learnt into practice. This is in addition to at least 30 University based skills days, some of which take place in our excellent simulation houses where a range of professional scenarios can be replicated to support your learning. You will engage with service users and carers throughout your studies in addition to your direct work with service users and carers on placement. This engagement helps you to develop your confidence, abilities and understanding of a social worker’s responsibilities. You will strengthen your practical knowledge through course activities to ensure you are well prepared for your social work placements. You will be encouraged to adopt reflective practice techniques to enable you to evaluate your progress and inform your future work.

Our expertise

Members of our teaching staff are professionally qualified and experienced social workers who are registered with Social Work England or with the appropriate regulatory body for their current location. We also have staff who are active researchers in the the areas of social work practice, social work education and related fields, with work published in academic journals, monographs and books. Some staff also review for academic publications by other authors and some also sit on the editorial boards for respected international journals. 

West Midlands Social Work Teaching Partnership (WMSWTP)

We are a member of the WMSWTP which aims to strengthen the quality of education and training for social work students and qualified practitioners. It seeks to ensure teaching excellence and that what you learn is contemporary and reflects the needs of children, adults and families.

Strengthening your employability

Placements

We have excellent relationships with our partners who provide us with placement opportunities. These include local authorities in the West Midlands and Staffordshire, and voluntary sector organisations.

In year one you will spend two to three days shadowing social work professionals and will complete skills development workshops to demonstrate your readiness for practice. Throughout the programme you will undertake a total of 170 days of practice learning in at least two settings. One of these will be in a service gaining important experience of statutory interventions such as within a local authority children and families department or in hospital social work teams. This will ensure you are ready to apply for jobs upon graduation in any social work setting.

Before the first assessed placement, you will complete a written profile of your own study needs and begin to compile information relevant to your placement setting and service user group. This portfolio will be used in the pre-placement meeting between you, a tutor from the university and practice educator to develop a placement agreement. Before embarking on your work assignment, you will also need demonstrate your readiness for direct practice and will be supported to develop a range of skills and professional attributes. You will also need to maintain your own professional suitability and fitness to practise throughout the course.

Student support

Robust support is available to you during every stage of your programme. Academic mentors on the course are able to provide advice and guidance as well as reviewing your progress and where appropriate, identifying and dealing with areas of concern. We have recently further improved tutorial support so that it closely mirrors professional practice through the addition of small group tutorials to existing one-to-one support. This ensures that you have both one to one and small group support alongside professional development opportunities throughout the course

A Student Experience and Support team is based within our Faculty with a member of the team dedicated to the School of Medicine. As part of Student Services, they work closely with various teams across Keele so you can easily access the help you need.

Extra assistance is available from the School's Disability Inclusion Tutor who provides an additional layer of support for all students, particularly for those who have additional learning needs.

You will have access to a mixture of advice and support services at Keele which include;

• Learning Support and Academic Guidance
• Disability Support and Inclusion
• English Language Unit
• Student Advice at Keele (ASK)
• Student Support Services
• Occupational Health Department