Postgraduate Course: Social Work in Communities (SCWR11039)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course considers how social workers can support individuals living in need in communities by working with them to build on social capital and strengths. It considers gaps and tensions in current service configuration that mean that people often experience being 'done to' by service providers rather than worked 'with'
The course employs a combination of lecture inputs, tutorials and Enquiry Action Learning (EAL) small groupwork. This combination of teaching delivery is designed to support problem solving skills as well as knowledge acquisition regarding the theory, skills and values of social work in different community settings. |
| Course description |
The first five weeks of the course cover more theoretically orientated content underpinning work with people in communities: discussing questions about what community is, what ecological approaches to working with wider family and friends networks consist of, how social capital may be built, issues of place, space and connection, and poverty-aware social work practice. The subsequent five weeks are more applied and consider what community/community social work approaches look like when supporting people to confront issues such as discrimination and oppression, abuse, substance misuse, crime or insecure migration status.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
Students MUST have passed:
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 32 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 20,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 12,
Fieldwork Hours 3,
Other Study Hours 55,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
106 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Formal assessment of this course is broken down into two components: Essay (2,500 words) 70%
Group Presentation (15 minutes) 30%
Please note that each of the assignment tasks must be passed independently at 40% or above. This means that if you fail the essay, you will have to do a resit, because you have to pass everything to progress to next year. The total mark awarded for the course will be an aggregate of the marks for the essay and for the group presentation, weighted to reflect the percentage allocation of marks above. |
| Feedback |
Staff members will facilitate the group in relation to group process. The course organiser offers a session prior to the essay submission to discuss expectations for the individual essay. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Articulate different conceptions of community, drawing on relevant sources of knowledge, to demonstrate how community may function as a site of support and struggle for individuals receiving social work support.
- Apply theories related to community, community support and social support to describe and analyse the ways in which helping professionals can work collaboratively with people's strengths in community settings.
- Reflect on knowledge gained from the lived experiences of people who have been oppressed, excluded or faced loss in communities to demonstrate insight into the ways in which professional support can help and hinder social inclusion and capacity building.
- Share, discuss and interrogate ideas relating to communities, community social work and community support.
- Profile the needs of a given community, identifying strengths, needs for support, gaps in existing community service provision and how gaps may be addressed.
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Reading List
Bernard, C. (2021) Intersectionality for Social Workers: A Practical Introduction to Theory and Practice. London, United Kingdom, Routledge.
Delanty, G. (2018) Community . Third Edition. New York, Routledge.
MacQueen, K.M., McLellan, E., Metzger, D.S., Kegeles, S., Strauss, R.P., Scotti, R., Blanchard, L. & Trotter, R.T. (2001) What Is Community? An Evidence-Based Definition for Participatory Public Health. American journal of public health . 91 (12), 1929¿1938. doi:10.2105/AJPH.91.12.1929.
Pascoe, K.M., Hawthorne-Steele, I., O¿Brien, F. & Moreland, R. (2025) From Rhetoric to Reality: Social Work Leading Change Through Learning and Implementing Community Development Approaches. Practice (Birmingham, England). 1¿18. doi:10.1080/09503153.2025.2505436.
Pierre, R. (2024) Free Loaves on Fridays: The Care System As Told By People Who Actually Get It. Unbound.
Turbett, C. with Pye, J. (2024)) A Practical Guide to Community Social Work Practice in the UK. Policy.
Turbett, C. (2018) Community social work in Scotland: A critical history, fifty years after the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968. IRISS. https://www.iriss.org.uk/resources/reports/community-social-work-scotland.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Robin Sen
Tel:
Email: r.sen@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Celia Atherton
Tel:
Email: cathert2@ed.ac.uk |
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