Social Work

Social work is all about people: it is an extremely rewarding and challenging profession. You’ll need to be hard working, adaptable, honest and, above all, passionate about finding long-term solutions and supporting positive changes for children, adults and families. You develop the skills, knowledge and understanding of how to support people to improve personal, practical, psychological and social aspects of their lives.

As a student of BA Social Work at Essex you experience a lively, informal environment with many possibilities to pursue your own interests whilst being part of a multidisciplinary school. We provide you with an active and stimulating environment for your studies and the chance to really make a difference within an essential profession in today’s society.

Placement Opportunities Within the School of Health and Social Care, we value the experience and opportunity that a placement can give you. It is an intrinsic part of many of our courses. Within our BA Social Work you will do at least 170 days in practice placement during your time with us - you will even have the opportunity to do an international placement as part of this.

Our partnerships with placement providers ensure you gain effective, high-quality training, allowing you to gain experience working with children, adults, families and communities.

When you are on placement, the placement provider is expected to meet the travel costs incurred as a result of work carried as part of that placement (i.e. travel to meetings, etc). However, you will be expected to meet the costs of travel to and from placement.

Social Work students may be eligible to apply for the NHS Social Work bursary, which can be put towards paying for tuition fees, maintenance costs, or travel to placement. More information is available on the NHS BSA website.

DBS and Occupational Health Checks

This course requires a satisfactory Occupational Health Check and enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) Check (including child and adult barred list check) - both of these are organised by the University. Please contact our DBS team if you have any questions relating to getting your DBS check.

You will also be required to register for the DBS Update Service (information relating to this service can be found here). You will need to register for this within 30 days of your DBS certificate being issues. The Update Service costs £13 per year, which the University will reimburse. You will need to keep the subscription to this Service active for the duration of your course. If you do not register for the Update Service within 30 days, or your registration lapses, and you later attend placement where this is a requirement, you will have to pay for a new DBS check, which will enable you to sign up to the Update Service. Please contact our DBS team if you have any questions relating to this.

A satisfactory Overseas Criminal Record Check/Local Police Certificate is also required, in addition to a DBS Check, where you have lived outside of the UK in the last 5 years for 6 months or more. Further information about how to obtain an Overseas Criminal Record check can be found on the Gov.uk website.

Location

Whilst this course is offered at both our Southend and Colchester campuses, we recommend that you consider which location would suit you best and apply for that campus. If you apply to multiple campuses, you will only have one interview and your chances of being offered a place will be the same as if you had only applied to one campus. If you wish to change campus at any point during the admissions process then please contact your Admissions Adviser who will do their best to accommodate your preference. Changing campus is subject to availability.