Professional judgements are pivotal in safeguarding children. A skilled practitioner adeptly navigates varied assessment approaches, frameworks, and tools to make judgements that best protects a child from harm. Are you well versed in gathering information, but struggle to analyse its complexity? Embark on this voyage to reenvisage the child protection assessment process by learning from contemporary research and practice perspectives. Explore how attachment informed assessments can look at both the child and the caregiver, in terms of the latter's capacity to mentalise: how parents do or do not engage in the psychological experiences of their children and how issues such as unresolved loss and trauma can impact parenting. Learn to use dynamic assessment tools and engage in award winning immersive serious digital games such as the myCourtroom: Rosie’s family go to court, developed by the Centre for Child Protection for valuable insights on risk, judgement, and decision-making thresholds in child protection contexts.
Learning and Teaching Method Hours Allocated Online Lectures, Audios, Readings, Video clips and otherresources- 80
Discussion Forums-20
1-1 Academic support- 10
Contact Hours: Live teaching at induction/study day- 10
Advanced Child Protection (Distance Learning) MA
Written- Extended writing- E-portfolio showcasing the application of assessment tools/approaches to case studies- 3,500 words-Weighting 80%-This Assessment is Pass Compulsory.
Written -Reflection -Online posts. -2 substantive posts between 250-300 words each. Each post is worth 10%- Weighting 20%- This Assessment is Pass Compulsory.
Reassessment methods- Like-for-like
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
On successfully completing the module, students will be able to:
1) Critically evaluate the process of data gathering, professional judgement and analysis of risk in child protection context.
2) Discover and employ effective communication techniques with children/young people, drawing on a comprehensive understanding of the core elements of partnership working with parents in child protection.
3) Apply diverse frameworks and approaches to facilitate sound and robust decision-making, having effectively engaged with parents, carers, and children.
4) Interrogate the theoretical perspectives underpinning the assessment, decision-making and intervention processes in child protection and critically evaluate their significance for the development of practice.
5) Apply diverse models and methods of assessment to real life scenarios, gathering critical data, considering a variety of factors including inter-agency perspectives.
6) Through discussion of themes with diverse audiences, you will critically analyze and evaluate diverse perspectives, and synthesize complex ideas strengthening collaborative learning.
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