Welcome to your Social Work course

Hello and welcome to your new course! We’re all really excited to work with you over the next three years on your journey to becoming a social worker. Our course is regulated by Social Work England (SWE) and will prepare you for a career in social work where you will work in a diverse range of settings all with human rights and social justice is at its core.

All of the staff who teach on your course have qualifications in social work. In total, we have over 120 years of practice experience in a wide variety of specialisms. We thought you’d like to learn out about the staff who will be working with you over the next three years, so we’ve put together some information for you about our experience. You will find this further down this page.

First activity

Welcome Week (w/c 22^nd September 2025) will be an opportunity to meet the academic team. Details regarding this will be sent to you nearer the time. Your first year of study (Level 4) begins with a period of study skills development before you move on to cover modules which explore, law, sociology and psychology and their links to the social work profession before completing your preparation for practice module.

Student Occupational Health

A large part of your learning on your course involves practice learning and we need to ensure that you have the correct level of occupational health protection.

For further detail please click here:

Social Work: A Profession

As a social work student, it is important to understand the professional requirements of social work, and the framework that will shape your professional development. The most important of these can be accessed via the links below:

Social Work England’s Professional Standards Professional standards - Social Work England

British Association of Social Workers – Professional Capabilities Framework Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF) | BASW

Introductory Reading

One of the most important things you can do to prepare for studying on the BA Social Work is to keep up to date with contemporary issues for social work. Two useful websites are:

Community Care - Social Work News & Social Care Jobs

British Association of Social Workers | BASW

If you would like to complete some reading before you start the course the books below will allow you to familiarise yourself with some of the key concept that will be explored during the course. You don’t necessarily have to buy this book as we have some copies in our library, electronic copies available through the University library.

Lishman, J. et al (2018) Social Work: An Introduction, 2nd edition. London: Sage Publications

Thompson, N. (2024) Understanding social work : preparing for practice. 6th ed. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

To get a head start with developing your academic skills try reading:

Bottomley, J et al. (2018) Studying for Your Social Work Degree. St Albans: Critical Publishing

Course Delivery

The course is delivered face-to-face at our campus in Stoke. Sessions are usually 2 hours long, with two sessions taught each day you are on campus. Attendance at the taught sessions is paramount as this will provide you with the foundation of knowledge that will be built upon as the course progresses.

Teaching sessions will include classroom lectures, working in groups and engaging in interactive simulations. As social workers you will be interacting with a wide variety of people, so we build in activities to help you develop the skills you need to be successful in your future career.

Between your lectures, we will give you some tasks to do. Sometimes, we might ask you to do some reading, sometimes it might be to do some reflection and other times it might be to do a bit of group work with others from your year group. These tasks are very important to help you to keep up with your learning and make the most of our sessions when we are together. They will also help you prepare for your assessments.

You will be allocated an Academic Mentor. This person will be one of the teaching team and will stay as your mentor for the three years you are with us. They will check how you’re getting on and will be there to support you if you need it.

Meet the team

Rebecca Ford

Course Director And Social Work Lead

I am a qualified social worker and practice educator, with 15 years experience in practice with children and their families in statutory settings. Working with and safeguarding older children, has been a driving factor throughout my career.

Rebecca's profile

Anthony Bruner

Senior Lecturer

Anthony is the course leader for BA(Hons) Social Work. Originally from America he is a social worker and Psychotherapist. As part of his PhD he is researching how social workers use mental health knowledge in practice.

Anthony's profile

Zoe Yeomans

Course Lead

I am Academic Lead on the BA (Hons) Social Work Course, Lecturer in Practice Learning, and student placements and preparatory modules coordinator. My area of expertise is social work with adults, including learning disability and hospital discharge.

Zoe's profile

What to expect on Welcome Week

We're so excited for you to join us on campus and to welcome you to where you matter. During your welcome week you'll be able to meet our friendly student services teams, connect with new friends, join societies, explore on-campus venues attend club nights and much more.