The Child Focused Practice course is the only course of its kind in the UK, which focuses on the use of systemic ideas when working directly with children and young people. This is a developing area of expertise and this course is at the cutting edge of those developments. The course is specifically aimed at professionals working with children in a wide range of contexts. Participants must have experience of working with children, and be currently working with children and families. The course looks at the development of child focused systemic ideas and skills over time, with an emphasis on exploring the processes of change and the nature of the therapeutic relationship. Additionally issues such as gender, ethics, culture and power are central. A variety of teaching methods are used: didactic, role-play, use of audio-visual material, small group discussion and case presentation and consultation. A number of external speakers present their specialist areas of interest.

Another feature of the Child Focused course is its form of delivery, which enables those of you who are geographically distant from London to access the course. It is delivered on two Mondays per month over a nine month period, thus incorporating the same number of teaching hours as its families and couples counterpart but appealing to a different student group either by virtue of the emphasis on working with children and young people or the monthly delivery which fits in with other commitments.

The course is suitable for professionals who wish to increase their capacity to work directly with children and their families/carers. This includes nurses, social workers, teachers, counsellors, other health professionals and those in front line services that wish to work systemically with clients.

The course can be used as a stand alone course to increase your theory and skills in working with children, young people and their families. It also acts as the Foundation year for both the two year Postgraduate Certificate in Systemic Practice and the four year qualifying training to become a family therapist.

Units

• Foundation Level Skills Unit (Child Focused Practice) (ASS037-3) Compulsory
• Foundation Level Theory Unit (Child Focused Practice) (ASS036-3) Compulsory

The course employs a range of assessment strategies, which are linked to the learning outcomes of the course. The strategies include written assignments that give you the opportunity to show your systemic writing skills, by demonstrating your ability to make cogent links between theory and practice in direct work with clients as well as to show reflexive abilities and attention to anti-discriminatory practices. Such traditional written assessments give you the chance to use your own client work to show theory in action and to give examples of creative responses in unexpected situations.

The course is composed of formative, graded and ungraded elements of assessment. The first written assignment is a low-weighted assessment which gives you an opportunity to attempt academic systemic writing and receive feedback on your work, which can then be used to inform your preparation for your higher weighted assignments.

The course includes presentation opportunities to small groups that enable you to hear your own systemic voice as well as contribute feedback and commentary to other student presentations. This encourages you to take seriously the potential effects of your comments on others and so requires attention to appreciative and respectful ways of talking that brings forth the best in others. This strategy builds on the small group experience in which a small number of you and one consistent tutor discuss and debate papers in a collaborative way. This also requires you to consider your ethical positions in relation to one another.

One of the key aims of the course is to equip you with the skills to work directly with children and families/carers and to enable you to show evidence of this ability. The assessment strategy responding to this aim is in a small group context and offers you the chance to present cases or dilemmas from your usual work context to show the application of systemic ideas in action as well as to actively consider the possible influences of the wider professional system. In extending this assessment strategy, you produce written examples of your systemic work with clients showing the development of practice skills in your own work places. The strength of this strategy is that it applies equally well to organisational dilemmas as well as case consultations and gives you the chance to extend your systemic thinking beyond the frame of direct work.

The spirit of the course is developmental learning. At the beginning of the course you are required to complete a personal skills audit to establish your personal and professional aspirations for your development through the course. At the end of the course you complete a similar audit as a way of measuring your development and identifying new learning aims for the future.

The Reflective Journal provides a vehicle for ongoing review of this skill development and is considered as a live and emerging document. This offers you the opportunity to actively reflect on your learning as you move through the course and to identify gaps and aspects of your practice and knowledge that you wish to expand or change. In adding to the journal session by session, this allows tutors and yourself to monitor, evaluate and reflect on the programme and ensure its relevance to your work contexts. Throughout this assessment strategy, you are expected to show evidence of reading beyond the course requirements and to access and review current research in relevant subject areas. This becomes a narrative of the learning journey and gives you and tutors the chance to note the shifts in thinking, action and reflexivity. The Reflective Journal is not graded but must be completed to a satisfactory standard to pass the course overall.

Throughout the assessment strategy, you are expected to include links between theory and practice, ideas about your own reflexive development, evidence of adherence to ethical frameworks and respectful practice and the ability to identify, consider and evaluate current research and ideas that contribute to better outcomes for clients. You are required to understand the statutory and legal frameworks that underpin work with children as well as Government initiatives that promote the welfare of children and families.

The different assignments provide you with a range of opportunities to demonstrate your learning on the course. You are also expected to bring case material to the small groups to show your learning in action.

On completing the course you are likely to have access to posts that require therapeutic skills. One example is in the Health and Social Care fields following the Munro Report on Child Protection, which promotes systemic ideas as essential skills for front line workers. This course provides foundation training in systemic ideas that are applicable to a range of professional contexts.

It is also the case that some of you enter the course to enhance your current practice, without changing your work context. One example is counsellors who have originally trained to work with individuals and who use this foundation training to move towards working with children and families/carers in the voluntary sector or as a stepping-stone to further training.

For those in the statutory sector, many use the course to expand their practice and to develop routes to promotion into social care, management or supervision.