Open University Links
If you are interested in finding out more about related Open University courses, you may find the following links useful:
Faculty of Health and Social Care
Openlearn
Free online learning resources from the Open University. There are a range of units that may be of specific interest to social workers. Examples include:
- Ageing and disability: transitions into residential care. Moving into a care home can have a profound emotional impact on an individual - just the anticipation of residential care is one of the biggest sources of fear for the elderly. This unit disccusses the role of social workers and care staff in supporting individuals through the transition, and how residential environments affect quality of life.
- Becoming a critical social work practitioner. What does it take to become a critical practitioner in social work? This unit will guide you through some important concepts. An understanding of 'critical perspectives' will help you take a positive and constructive approach to problems that arise in social work practice.
- Diversity and difference in communication. Interpersonal communication in health and social care services is by its nature diverse. As a consequence, achieving good or effective communication - whether between service providers and service users, or among those working in a service - means taking account of diversity, rather than assuming that every interaction will be the same. This unit explores the ways in which difference and diversity impact on the nature of communication in health and social care services.
- Care transitions. Arrangements for care and support which people manage for themselves or have organised for them privately or informally tell use something about the shifting borders between funded and non-funded care, between health and social care, and between paid and unpaid care work. They also demonstrate how the reality of the mixed economy of care is played out in the arrangements which people make for care and support in their own households.