Social Work

Social Work at Durham University is located in the historic city of Durham, a world heritage site.Its location in the School of Applied Social Sciences (SASS), gives social work, a discipline with a strong professional orientation, the advantage of working in a multidisciplinary setting that includes sociology, social policy, youth and community work, and sports.Social Work at Durham provides postgraduate studies at Masters and doctoral levels that prepare students to deal with some of the most difficult social problems faced by contemporary societies.Students are taught by a staff group at the forefront of the discipline locally, nationally and internationally.

Social work staff have research projects that range from micro-level practice concerns with children, families and/or adults to the impact of globalisation and new managerialism on the activities that social workers undertake in practice amongst individuals, groups and communities. They bring research findings into the teaching and use these to explore the changing nature of professional boundaries such as those at the interface between health and social care, education and child welfare, housing and older people. Each research project raises their own set of challenges to which practitioners have to respond when providing high quality services to those in need.

The teaching offered at Durham strives for excellence amongst the practitioner-students that complete its professional programmes and is embedded within a strong value system that promotes social justice in the locality and globally. The Times Good University Guide 2009 places Durham fifth for Social Work provision in the UK. Studying social work at Durham University enables students to participate in learning about leading developments in the discipline, gain practice confidence by working with a range of academics, practitioners and service users, and contribute to improving the quality of life of those in need.

Professor Lena Dominelli
Professor of School Applied Social Sciences