Child Protection: Working Together Managing Risk and Resilience – BSc

All professionals have a statutory responsibility to safeguard children and vulnerable adults. This course examines and evaluates knowledge and skills, in line with the emotional well-being and mental health of the child and its family, to understand and identify risks and vulnerability and to consider the concept of resilience and its promotion.

The course is delivered collaboratively from a number of perspectives – child health, child and adolescent mental health, and social care – and is taught with contributions from experts in the field.

Who is it for?

This course is designed for anyone working with children and adolescents or who has contact with children through working with parents.
Safeguarding is ‘everybody’s business’, and as such, this course aims to raise awareness of safeguarding and child protection issues, enabling the student to be conversant with the theory, policy and procedures surrounding it.

Timetable

This course runs for eight weeks from the end of January through to March on a Thursday afternoon from 1pm to 4.30pm. There are seven teaching sessions and one reading week

Benefits

If you would still like to complete this course as a CPPD student but would like to complete a top-up degree at a later date, please note that you will only be able to transfer a maximum of 30 credits which have been awarded within 5 years prior to the start date of the programme (top-up degree).

For any further information regarding top-up degrees please contact the CPPD team (healthcppd@city.ac.uk).

By the end of the course you will be able to:

• Demonstrate the knowledge and capability to assess risk and plan to reduce and manage risk
• Critically examine the theories underpinning family systems and parenting variables
• Identify the cultural, environmental and economic factors that promote resilience or hinder family functioning
• Critically evaluate the organisational life of schools and public institutions
• Demonstrate a competent level of knowledge of the legal framework, investigative processes and professional accountability in the safeguarding of children
• Recognise the professionals' duty of care to children within their families, the complexities of formal power and how this impacts on practice
• Develop and sustain collaborative inter-professional relationships
• To critically analyse the role of child and family from a formal organisational perspective
• Examine effective strategies engaging the voice of young service users in the development and evaluation of services.

Teaching:

The teaching sessions are made up a journal group, reflective practice group and a topic presentation. Teaching is also delivered through lectures and exploring the wider literature. Students will be encouraged to develop their critical and reflective ability.

Assessment:

The written assessment is comprised of 2,000-word report and a 1,000-word reflective commentary.

Drawing on your knowledge and understanding, the written assessment provides you with an opportunity to critically structure a report concerning a child/adolescent at risk, highlighting any challenges that the child/adolescent's needs pose for the service/s involved and to arrive at a reasoned judgement as to how services may best meet the child/adolescent's needs.

The 1,000-word reflective commentary will provide an opportunity to critically discuss the report, summarising the relevant issues that impact on your practice, highlighting both individual strengths and areas for future development.

Credits

This course is worth 15 credits toward eligible programmes.

Non-EEA students can only apply as part of a programme, not as a stand-alone course.

Course requirements include:

• a current professional registration with a relevant professional/statutory body or equivalent
• at least one year's experience working in, for example: the voluntary sector, social work, education, primary care, mental health nursing, psychology, psychiatry, criminal justice, residential workers and those who are currently working in an agency with responsibility for aspects of inter-professional practice relating to their own discipline
• a satisfactory academic reference and/or a satisfactory clinical reference.

English requirements

If your first language is not English, one of the following is required:

• A first degree from a UK university
• A first degree from an overseas institution recognised by City, University of London as providing adequate evidence of proficiency in the English language, for example, from institutions from Australia, Canada or the United States of America.
• International English Language Test Service (IELTS) a score of 7.0 is required with no subtest below 7.0
• Pearson Test of English (Academic) score 72 required
• TOEFL 100 overall with 24 in Writing, 20 in Listening, 19 Reading and 20 Speaking
• Other evidence of proficiency in the English language, which satisfies the board of studies concerned, including registration with your professional regulator.

HM Government (2018) Working together to Safeguard Children: March 2018 A guide to inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children London: Crown Publications

workingtogetheronline.co.uk

HM Government (2018) Serious Violence Strategy

NICE (2017) Child Maltreatment: When to suspect maltreatment in under 18s London: NICE

NSPCC (2017) nspcc.org.uk

Radford, L., Corral, S., Bradley, C., Fisher, H., Bassett, C., Howat, N. & Collishaw, S. (2011) Child Abuse and Neglect in the UK Today London: NSPCC