Advanced Child Protection (Distance Learning)

You are up for an eye-opening journey through the historical and contemporary landscape of child abuse. You will unveil the everchanging discourses on child protection, from the 19th Century poverty-stricken society to the 21st Century where algorithms and social media loom large in children’s lives. Through this exploration, you will interrogate the definitions of child abuse and maltreatment, its prevalence, and incidence. You will critically examine why developing universally agreed standards for defining and addressing child maltreatment is problematic. In developing a historical consciousness, you will learn from the past to shape our current ways of thinking about child abuse and child protection. You will develop inclusive child protection practices in raising critical questions about the role of men in child protection. Drawing upon significant research findings, you will consider multiple perspectives, embracing insights from both the family and the child, thus harnessing an all-encompassing view of the child protection system.

The UK child protection policy landscape is an evolving entity and professionals can struggle to keep abreast of changes. Do you know what the law and policy guidance is expecting of you as a child protection professional? Do you have sufficient insight into the policies and practice challenges of your partner agencies? You will be provided with a critical backdrop to the legal frameworks governing UK child protection, both within a single and multi-agency context, and examine key barriers to inter-professional working. What is mandated for professionals is undoubtedly important but so too is exploring practice situations which present unpredictability and uncertainty. You will therefore also critically examine techniques and approaches to working with hostile and resistant families. How do you actually achieve effective communication? Models of best practice and theories will help you to develop good and sustained engagement with families and through engaging ‘Rosie 2’, the Centre’s award-winning, interactive and student-led simulation, you will have multiple opportunities to critically reflect on various scenarios. As neglect remains the prevalent category of abuse, ‘Rosie 2’ explores the impact, responses to and practice challenges in cases of child neglect.

Being ‘research minded’ is a crucial skill that is vital for every child protection practitioner. You will embark on a mission that equips you with the much-needed skills and knowledge to become a critical consumer of research. Through understanding how research is crafted and conducted to produce knowledge, you will develop a profound understanding of the multi-faceted landscape of social research. You will take a deep dive into philosophical perspectives that shape research methodologies, scrutinising the value of varied methods and ethical quandaries that confront researchers. From crafting a good research question to critically evaluating the implications of research findings, we will contemplate the strengths and limitations of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches through the critical lenses of validity, reliability, generalisability, and transferability. When this mission is accomplished, you will have skills that can be deployed not just in your postgraduate studies, but in professional practice. As an ethically minded critical researcher, you will be able to draw from decolonial, anti-oppressive and inclusive approaches to producing knowledge.

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.

As a child protection professional you are immersed into the often complex and emotional world of not only the children, young people and families with whom you work, but also the working practices and culture of your employing organisation. Professional supervision provides a critical reflective space for processing your emotions but how genuinely does this support you to process your conscious and unconscious feelings and thoughts about a home visit, an organisational decision about a family or your own unexplained feelings about risks to a child or young person? This module includes a breadth of practical and theoretical learning, integrating research on neuroscience which evidences the impact of emotions on the brain. It is designed to centralise you in your workplace and provides a rare and invaluable experience of navigating the often-unspoken aspects of child protection organisations. Through critically reflecting on and discussing these dynamics, and exploring key concepts through the Centre’s child protection simulations, you will re-enter your workplace with a more holistic and healthier perspective on organisational life.

Unlock the potential of your passion for child protection with your dissertation! Take a deep dive into a child protection topic that ignites you and undertake a substantial piece of research integrating the knowledge and skills you have acquired across multiple modules on the MA programme. As a major piece of work, the dissertation is not just a requirement of your Master’s degree in child protection, but a catalyst for stimulating your critical thinking and the development of evidence-based arguments. With a dedicated supervisor by your side, walking the walk with you, complemented by taught sessions and dissertation drop-ins you are all set for a trip into the depths of knowledge and exploration.

Identifying and implementing interventions and services to address the needs of children and young people is familiar work for you as a child protection professional. But how extensive and current is your knowledge about what works and what doesn’t? You will critically reflect on interventions and services, examining their effectiveness in meeting the needs of diverse children, young people and families. Applying new and emerging theoretical lenses, you will learn the criticality of responding to the intersections of children’s lived experiences when planning services. This includes consideration of socio-economic factors, disability, sexuality, race and ethnicity, evaluating the values and ethics of child protection practice. Service provision in neoliberal economies can leave us feeling despondent but you will generate innovative and creative mechanisms to support those most at risk, engaging with interactive learning technologies which bring to life the lived experiences of vulnerable children and families.

At the heart of this transformative module lies a bold mission—to shape the practice of guardians who safeguard the most vulnerable. You are not mere learners; you will become architects of impact by diving deep into international child protection practice where you will unleash your analytical prowess and dissect diverse interventions used worldwide. You will engage in spirited discussions where your views and experiences matter. Infused with wisdom, empathy, and cultural intelligence, this module will enable you to unravel the intricate tapestry of global policies and understand their impact, their flaws, and their potential. You will evaluate the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and its real-world impact, robustly and critically. You will step into the service user's shoes and consider what support truly matters to them and what ignites change while exploring ways to bridge gaps, unite minds and protect children's rights across the globe. Ultimately, you will lead in sculpting a safer, brighter world-one child at time.