As 2023 is unfurling and Spring is on our doorstep, I wanted to reach out to you to let you know of our units offerings for the next couple of months and some new exciting developments at Bournemouth University.

Listening to some of the challenges that our practice partners are facing, we are developing a new unit to address issues of self-neglect that will be running in November 2023. It is aimed at practitioners, clinicians and staff who are involved in assessment, care/care planning, risk assessment and leadership in services that are accessed by people who may be vulnerable as defined under the Care Act 2014. Student will explore ‘Self-Neglect’ by developing meaning and understanding across professional boundaries. We will critically engage with the impact on practitioners when working with individuals and consider how supervision can support decision making whilst managing uncertainty and risk.

Another new development for BU is the offer of training days to specific topics such as Trauma Informed Practice, Appreciative Inquiry and Domestic Violence and Abuse. These days are non- accredited learning opportunities for practitioners who wish to develop their skills, deepen their understanding and critically engage with the latest research.  

More exciting units are under development and I will tell you more about it in the next newsletter. Until then, as ever, please feel free to contact me lenzt@bournemouth.ac.uk or Sandra Adye sadye@bournemouth.ac.uk for any information on our CPD offer, specific requests for your organisation or general feedback. 

Meanwhile, we would like to invite you to our ‘Beyond Safeguarding A Conceptual Approach’ event on 22nd March 2023 at the Executive Business Centre, Lansdowne Campus at Bournemouth University. 

The objective of this event is to develop additional frameworks of meaning to support effective collaboration and integrated practice in safeguarding adults and children. This event will be hosted by members of the National Centre of Post-Qualifying Social Work team from Bournemouth University.  

Diane Galpin and Annastasia Maksymluk are the leads on our new Risk and Decision Making in Safeguarding Adults and Children unit, which focuses on enhancing students’ understanding of the contextual nature of professional safeguarding practice via enhancing the role of critical reflection as a potential research tool. The content of the unit provides an additional theoretical framework to health and social care practitioners to extend their knowledge base into socio-economic and legal policy analysed via social theory. This enhances clinical knowledge and provides health practitioners with the shared theoretical basis necessary for joined-up working with social care colleagues.  

At the event, Professor Lee-Ann Fenge, Diane Galpin, Annastasia Maksymluk, Emily Rosenorn-Lanng and Stevie Corbin-Clarke will be sharing the results from the recent evaluation of this new safeguarding unit and will also be piloting our exciting new Safeguarding (SIFT) tool, and showing you how it works and the ways that it can help practitioners. There will be various other speakers at the event discussing recent research and practice issues, as well as opportunities for networking. 

To register for the event, please go to the Eventbrite page at the following link:  

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/beyond-safeguarding-a-conceptual-approach-tickets-528388463117 

Take care
Tilia Lenz, Senior Lecturer and CPD Framework Lead for Social Sciences