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Social Work degree and needing work experience?

I'm currently studying Health & Social Work BTEC Level 3 Extended and will be applying next year to go Uni to do a Social Work degree and I wanted to know that in order to get a place would I need a lot of experience under my belt?
I am currently doing one day of work experience at a residential home for disabled people a week for a year (over 100 hours) and have completed NCS in the summer (voluntary program for teens). I wanted to know if I should do more work experience/volunteering and if so should it be specific? Such as working with disabled children or being at an animal shelter and if it makes a different. I also wanted to know if unis care about age or not because this degree seems more for maturer students but I really want to do it!! Many thanks to anyone reading this.

Reply 1

Rose295

Hello. As someone who has received offers for this year, I would definitely recommend getting further experience. Social Work can be an incredibly demanding career and increasingly challenging! Therefor, universities definitely favour those who have a large amount of experience and extensive knowledge for the career. However, its not impossible to get onto a course without having as much experience as someone else may have. I know people who have gained offers straight from A Levels. However, this could have been down to them having relevant personal experiences or unique insight to the career/course.
Also, speaking as someone who has also undertaken the BTEC Extended Diploma in H&SC, I really feel like this course doesn't provide you with the skills and qualities needed to get accepted and to commit to such a challenging course that Social work is. I took a year out and am now doing an Access course and can't even explain how much more you learn and how well it really does prepare you for university. I'm not just talking experience but also written skills, strong academic assignments, working to very strict deadlines, learning and understanding

Reply 2

chloegibson96

Hi! I'm in my third year of applied social science and going to do a masters in social work this September and experience is definitely key! Try and do it in different areas, I've worked with autistic children, mental health, elderly with dementia and I'm currently doing the admin side of working with homeless people, it's really important then you can demonstrate that you have confidence and excellent communication skills as well as a wide variety of experience.
If you are struggling to find something I'd recommend do-it.org which is a brill website to find a placement on! I found my current one on here and there's some great placements. You pop in your postcode and find ones near you :smile:

Good luck!
Chloe x

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And age doesn't matter btw, York offered me a place on masters and I was youngest of them all and they offered me a place in less than 24 hours :smile:

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 3

liebkuchen

I've recently started my training as an adviser for Citizen's Advice. You meet such a diverse range of people with tons of different problems. It can count as experience- we have a SW student here on placement, too. It needs a longer term commitment because the training's so thorough but you could carry it on while at uni. Something to think about.

Reply 4

clouise156

Thank you everyone for your replies! I also wanted to add that I have grown up with my brother who has very severe autism and learning difficulties (cannot talk) and my sister is also an SW.