Childcare Practice, PGDip

This is a post-qualifying course in Childcare Practice for qualified social workers and other child care professionals with related qualifications. The whole course is worth 120 academic credits. On completion, participants will gain the Specialist Award in Post Qualifying Childcare Practice (professional award) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Childcare Practice.

Childcare Practice
This course gives social workers and other childcare professionals the opportunity to gain a specialist qualification, as part of the continuing professional development programme as guided by the College of Social Work and the Health and Care Professions Council. This is both an academic and a professional course. Students are expected to undertake assessed practice, which usually takes place in their own workplace.

Modules are also available to be taken as part of continuing professional development.

Our dedicated staff have strong academic backgrounds, and many are leading practitioners engaged in consultancy and research, ensuring that you gain the specialist skills you really need.

Nottingham Trent University is offering a consolidation module for qualified child care social workers not directly employed by a local authority, for example social workers in the voluntary and independent sector and agency workers. The course will be taught in Nottingham city centre. Please contact us for specific start dates.

Any questions?
Email us
Telephone:+44 (0)115 848 4460
Visit the School of Social Sciences website.

• Module One: Consolidation (this may be taken as a stand alone module)
• Module Two: Evidence Informed Professional Practice
• Module Three: Child Development for Social Work Practice
• Module Four: Social Policy and Law in Multi Professional Practice
• Module Five: Families and Carers in Social and Environmental Contexts
• Module Six: Practice Educator One

The first module, Consolidation, is taken as a stand-alone module delivered in partner agencies.

Nottingham Trent University offers a consolidation module for qualified child care social workers not directly employed by a local authority, for example social workers in the voluntary and independent sector and agency workers. The course will be taught in Nottingham city centre. For start dates please contact us.

The module follows on from the Newly Qualified Social Worker programme, but is also suitable if you qualified before the NQSW was introduced. You can then go on to complete the rest of the award. Successful completion of these modules will lead to the award of Postgraduate Diploma Childcare Practice.

Assessment
Assessment of the Consolidation module is by a written assignment and practice element. Assessment of the remaining five modules is carried out via:

• written assignments
• presentations
• case analysis
• demonstration of competency in practice and an exam.

How do you study?
The course is part-time, one day a week over a calendar year.

Resources and facilities

• Module One will be taught jointly by Nottingham Trent University and agency staff in the candidate's own agency premises.
• Modules Two - Six are taught by staff from the Division of Social Work and Professional Practice at Nottingham Trent University.

Students have access to the full range of University facilities such as the £13 million library, Fitness Suite and Student Support Centre.

Professional development
This is both an academic and a professional course. Students are expected to undertake assessed practice, which usually takes place in their own work-place.

Special benefits
The course has strong links with the statutory, voluntary and private sector. There is a strong emphasis on the integration of practice into the curriculum. All students will have a practice mentor assessor from their agency.

Continuing Professional Development

Modules are also available to be taken as part of continuing professional development. Please see below for additional CPD modules.

Promoting Good Outcomes for Looked After Children through Adoption

Credits from this 30-credit module can be put towards a Postgraduate Certificate in Childcare Practice or the Postgraduate Diploma in Childcare Practice or the MA in Professional Practice. Applications are open to social workers with at least one year's post-qualified experience.

The course is aimed at local authority social workers in locality teams, children in care teams, and permanence teams, and practitioners in the voluntary and independent sector who would like a deeper understanding of the issues facing children being adopted through their agencies. This course is being run in conjunction with Faith in Families, a voluntary adoption agency in the East Midlands.

Overview and Aims
This module will address the current government agenda that more children should be adopted, more quickly. It will investigate children's needs in this context and what contributes to successful adoption placements. The module will include:

• Child development – how issues of attachment, trauma and identity affect children in adoptive families
• Care planning and decision making- what sort of permanence?
• Siblings – together or apart?
• Contact and working with birth families
• Preparation of child and adopters for placement – life appreciation days
• Family finding and matching
• The child in placement – knitting the family together, promoting attachment, therapeutic interventions
• Direct work – life story work, talking to children, telling difficult information, later life letters

Teaching
There will be five days of direct input starting in January 2014. Input will be through lectures, group work, eLearning and experiential activity, and will be delivered by university staff and practitioners at the NTU City site. There will also be an additional eLearning day.

Teaching dates:
Wednesday 15 January 2014, Wednesday 5 February 2014, Wednesday 12 February 2014, Tuesday 1 April 2014 and Wednesday 2 April 2014.
You will also need to be able to put aside time for study days and eLearning. We recommend that this should amount to a further six days.

Assignment:
This module will be assessed through a 5,000 word case study assignment, based on your own practice.

Fee rates 2013/2014:
Please contact us for details.

Applications:
For application forms, please email us.

View the full course specification
Please note that course specifications may be subject to change