Foundations for social care and social work practice
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Are you interested in social care or social work? This module helps expand your understanding of how to work with others while developing your knowledge of the key skills required for working within social care and/or social work. Learning and practicing these skills is a requirement of this module. It is a compulsory element of this module that you are either working in a social care setting or have a confirmed voluntary role in an appropriate setting to study.
KZNI123 is an alternative version of this module for students in Northern Ireland.
What you will study
This key introductory module will develop your understanding of key social care and social work skills. Throughout the module, you’ll cover the following topics:
Block 1 – Contextualising social care and social work
You’ll be introduced to the role and purpose of social care/social work and the role of the social care professional. You will explore what it means to live and work in our society and consider different people’s lived experiences.
Block 2 – Engaging with people
You will look in detail at communication skills, how to build rapport and actively listen to the life experiences of the people you are working with. You will explore the ways in which you may need to be creative and responsive to the specific communication needs of others.
Block 3 – Reflecting on our practice
You’ll look at anti-discriminatory, anti-oppressive and anti-racist practice - examining how we respond to discrimination, oppression and structural disadvantage. You will explore the importance of diversity in human identity and experience and consider ethical principles and values in practice and their impact on practice.
Block 4 – Assessing needs and risks
You’ll look at the role of assessment planning and intervention in social care/social work, including an introduction to your role in risk assessment and safeguarding, personalisation, and care planning. You will also consider evaluating outcomes of social care and social work interventions.
Block 5 – Being a professional
Finally, you’ll look at what it means to be a professional, including leadership, continuing professional development and personal development planning. You’ll explore emotional intelligence, wellbeing and the importance of resilience and self-care. The block concludes by looking at moving on to the next stages of your studies and/or career.
In addition to passing the assessed tasks for this module, which cover a variety of topics and require you to reflect on your learning throughout, you are also required to complete the following:
- A minimum period of verified practice learning in a social care/social work setting (10 days if you practice in England or Scotland, 20 days if you practice in Wales). It is a requirement that you have work-based learning arrangements in place before enrolling for this module. A manager or appropriate person in your social care/social work setting must verify this practice learning has taken place - they are signing to say that you are ready or prepared for further practice if/when you continue to train as a social worker and undertake longer assessed placements. To carry out this practice experience, you may be asked to provide a current Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) or Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) certificate. If you don’t have a certificate and one is required, it will be your responsibility to negotiate and fund it. At the end of you verified practice learning, you will be required to complete an e-portfolio of work. This is mapped against the standards required for practice in the nation within which you work.
- Actively participate in 10 x 2 hour online workshops and 5 x 1 hour consolidation sessions. You’ll be required to participate in all of the online workshops as they build towards the tutor-marked assignment tasks and act as the link between the module materials that you study and your ongoing practice learning experience in the workplace. If exceptional circumstances mean you are unable to attend a workshop, an alternative piece of work is required to compensate for this.
If you plan to study towards a social work qualification, please note that passing
Foundations for social care and social work practice (K123) does not lead to automatic entry on to a social work degree course. For more information,
visit our Social Work degrees.
You will learn
By completing this module you will learn:
- the professional standards and ethical codes relevant to social care and social work in each nation of the UK
- about the development of the key roles of social care and social work with individuals, families, groups and communities
- main areas of knowledge, skills, values and processes underpinning social care and social work, that will enable you to apply them to practice and/or case study examples
- awareness of professional identity across the UK and internationally
- key digital and information literacy skills and reflective writing.
Entry requirements
There are no formal entry requirements for this module. However, you will need access to a social care/social work setting to complete your verified practice learning. This can include voluntary work or through your employing agency. In Wales, your completed practice experience must have taken place within the last six months.
To register for this module, please .
BA (Hons) Social Work
To study this module as part of a social work degree, you must:
- have registered for the honours degree in social work in your location – England, Scotland, or Wales – or have declared it as your qualification intention
- be sponsored by your employing agency
- be currently working in a practice context.
Your sponsoring agency will provide you with appropriate practice learning opportunities and undertake to allow you one day a week study time for 120 credits study while you are on the programme. (There will be a pro-rata reduction in the entitlement of study time allowed if you are studying less than 120 credits per year). Sponsoring agencies should speak to an adviser for further information.
Studying social work is demanding; if you would like to discuss the suitability of the module, please .
What's included
All study materials are provided. The main mode of delivery of the teaching is through the module website, which includes:
- a week-by-week study planner
- module-specific materials
- audio and video content
- assignment details and submission section
- online tutorial access
- regular facilitated online workshops.
You will need
This module is an interactive learning experience. Consequently, it is an essential requirement that you have a working headset, microphone and webcam so that you can participate in online workshops.
You should have access to Microsoft Office (Microsoft Word and Excel) for the duration of the programme, and we strongly recommend that they are run on a Microsoft Windows-based computer.
Computing requirements
You’ll need broadband internet access and a desktop or laptop computer with an up-to-date version of Windows (10 or 11) or macOS Ventura or higher.
Any additional software will be provided or is generally freely available.
To join in spoken conversations in tutorials, we recommend a wired headset (headphones/earphones with a built-in microphone).
Our module websites comply with web standards, and any modern browser is suitable for most activities.
Our OU Study mobile app will operate on all current, supported versions of Android and iOS. It’s not available on Kindle.
It’s also possible to access some module materials on a mobile phone, tablet device or Chromebook. However, as you may be asked to install additional software or use certain applications, you’ll also require a desktop or laptop, as described above.