World Social Work Day 2016 is being celebrated on 15 March. The theme is 'Promoting the Dignity and Worth of Peoples'.
Here at the University of Birmingham, the mission of Birmingham’s School of Social Policy is ‘to understand the world – but also to change it’, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the University’s ground-breaking social work programmes.
Birmingham is the longest-running social work course in the country and currently second in The Complete University Guide national subject rankings. Birmingham has recently won the educational component of the regional ‘Step Up to Social Work’ programme, making Birmingham the only Russell Group University to run an employer-led route into social work alongside the current BA/MA.
In 2015, Birmingham students and graduates dominated the national Social Worker of the Year awards and our winners included:
- Harprit Rai, Adult Social Worker of the Year (currently studying the Stage 1 Enabling Others Post qualifying Social Work programme) who said, ‘I chose to study at University of Birmingham as a recommendation from Birmingham City Council. I was very honoured to be accepted when I found out that I had got a place at the University.’
- Tonia Dubidat, Student Social Worker of the Year (graduated with an MA, December 2015). ‘The social work programme is very much about looking at yourself and about self-evaluation and where your values and your ethics come from, and being able to put them into practise.’
- Elizabeth Spencer, Newly Qualified Adult Social Worker of the Year (graduated with a BA in Social Work, 2014. ‘The National Social Work Awards was such a memorable night full of individuals proud to represent social work. It was such a privilege to spend the evening with so many driven people’.
The following is some of the feedback from current BA Social Work students studying Social Work at Birmingham, about their experiences on the course.