Making Social Work Count: A National Curriculum Development Programme Pioneered in Three Universities

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Social work is the lead discipline in preparing social workers, managers and future research leaders within the area of social care, a £20 billion industry in the UK. There is a well established lack of understanding of quantitative methods within social work, and consequently comparatively little use of them in research. The proposed project is aimed at developing a shared common curriculum for quantitative teaching aimed at creating a significant improvement in the level of quantitative knowledge and skills within social work graduates in 3 pioneer universities. The project will then share the learning and resources created from this initiative across the discipline. The first phase of the research (2012-13) would involve 3 pioneer universities (Bath, Bedfordshire and Queen's Belfast) developing radically increased provision for quantitative teaching through a shared curriculum involving ten 2 or 3-hour sessions. Each university is developing specialist teaching for each year and also reviewing their programme to identify areas where quantitative data can meaningfully be added. The requirements of the degrees vary, and each university will be developing a combination of approaches unique to them as well as shared elements of teaching and curriculum across the pioneers. The second phase of the project will involve rolling this approach out to other interested Universities (2013-14). There are currently 12 Universities who have expressed firm interest in participating in this phase. Finally, the materials and online resources will be shared with all social work and other relevant disciplines through an online resource (2014). The funding would provide for (1) the time required for leaders in each University to develop materials and innovative curricula (2) importing expertise from academics to look at learning from and where appropriate sharing teaching with this discipline and (3) developing an online resource sharing the learning from the different pioneer approaches. This resource would include podcasts, group and individual activities and appropriate datasets for social work teaching. The initiative would be evaluated by comparing the knowledge and views of students and staff prior to the implementation of the changes, after the first year and then at the end of the RDI. This initiative can be funded alone, however it is an ambitious programme of work and would be more likely to achieve significant national change if complemented by the RDI proposal aimed at teaching and pedagogic support resources for both the pioneer and other Universities.