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Overview
Meet your CPD requirements as you work towards a full MA degree
Our MA Advanced Professional Practice has been designed for experienced professionals allows you to take a tailored route to an MA.
This is ideal if you want to achieve a qualification that meets your professional CPD requirements whilst gaining academic credits.
Your individual pathway is designed to meet your specific areas of interest, with the modules and assessments focused on knowledge and skills that will develop you and your organisation.
Professional development
Our MA Advanced Professional Practice course is aimed primarily at qualified and experienced practitioners and managers in professions that ‘work with people’.
These include social work, health, social care, early years, further and higher education and other public service organisations.
Your individual pathway is designed to meet your specific areas of interest, with the modules and assessments focused on knowledge and skills that will develop you and your organisation.
Build towards a full MA
You have the option to build towards an MA just one module at a time.
Similarly, you may leave the programme with the interim awards of Postgraduate Certificate or Postgraduate Diploma.
These are standalone postgraduate awards in their own right but can also be stepping stones to an MA.
This is ideal if you wish to return to your studies after a break or are hesitant about committing to a full MA.
There are also opportunities for you to import postgraduate modules studied at other universities, or ‘upgrade’ to M-level credits CPD undertaken through the workplace.
On this course you will:
- Meet your professional CPD requirements as you gain credits towards a full MA degree.
- Explore your specific areas of interest.
- Develop your future career opportunities in a variety of professional roles.
- Study on a flexible course that fits around your current career.
The Course
Prepare for the wide range of experiences and learning opportunities that you will encounter in practice
Modules can be:
- Delivered in the workplace or at the University.
- Studied as intensive short courses with the option of doing an assessment to gain credit.
- Used as a vehicle to gain academic credit for in-house or other forms of non-accredited CPD activity
- Tailored to meet the specific needs of employers.
Developing Resilience
This module will equip practitioners with a theoretical and practical understanding of the impact of the concept of resilience on professional practice.
Leadership and Management in a Professional Setting
Aimed at advanced practitioners who want to develop their leadership and management expertise.
Practice Education Stage 2
This module enables you to meet both the stage 1 and stage 2 requirements for the Practice Educator Professional Standards for social work (PEPS).
Research Methods and Dissertation
This final module enables you to undertake a research project in a specialist area of professional practice. You will be taught a range of research methods and will then apply these to explore a subject in-depth and analyse, interpret, and synthesise relevant information and data.
End of Life Care
Gain an understanding of what constitutes good end of life care. This will be coupled with opportunities to gain an understanding of the fundamental principles involved in providing best quality care to people that are dying, including providing support to their families and friends.
Good Practice in Bereavement Care
Obtain a thorough understanding of theory surrounding loss and bereavement. This will include a process by which you will be encouraged to examine your values and beliefs.
Mentoring
You will be equipped with the knowledge and skills required to undertake the role of a mentor or coach in a practice setting.
Positive Approaches to Risk and Intervention
This module asks you to step back from your practice and evaluate critically the tools that you use for the management of risk. You will be asked to identify current policy and legislative framework theory and research and use this context to reflect critically on your own experience of working with risk. This is relevant to practitioners working in both adult and children’s services.
Practice-Based Project
Explore a practice issue, problem or challenge. You will develop skills in project management and evaluation. The aim is that you will utilise your expertise as an experienced practitioner to act as a change agent in your team, organisation or community.
Resilience in Practice With Children and Families
You will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to enhance your own resilience and to support the development of resilience within children and families.
Specialist Knowledge in Practice
Gain academic credit through the demonstration of academic and practice outcomes following participation in professionally relevant short courses which may not attract formal academic credit.
Specialist Knowledge in Practice
Gain academic credit through the demonstration of academic and practice outcomes following participation in professionally relevant short courses which may not attract formal academic credit.
Writing for Publication
Build your skills to produce an in-depth, analytical review of the research and literature in a specific area of professional practice. This will be in a format suitable for publication in a professional journal.
Teaching and Assessment
Follow progression requirements with the help of expert staff
Teaching
We have a team of industry specialists who work together to give you the best experience during your studies.
At Chichester, you’re not just a number.
You’ll get to know the team and we will get to know you and your ambitions.
Assessment
Throughout the programme, you will experience different types of assessment which can be either be formative or summative.
Formative Assessment
Formative assessment is an ongoing process of finding out how well you are learning what is being taught while you are still in the process of learning. You can agree to targets with your tutor for your next steps in learning.
In this programme, formative assessment is mainly informal and includes initial needs assessment, discussion of development needs and ongoing responses to the tasks you are set.
Some modules offer you to submit a draft or a plan of the summative assessment. This will often be discussed in your student group where you can receive feedback from peers as well as tutors.
Summative Assessment
Summative assessment, as its name suggests, is a summation of what you have learnt. The summative assessment usually takes the form of more formal test or assignment at the end of a module.
Module assessment is normally based on an assignment of 2,000 words per 10 credits (or equivalent) using specified assessment criteria, linked to defined grade criteria, that explicitly inform written feedback on the quality of student’s work.
A range of formative and summative strategies will be employed to structure learning and are outlined in detail in the individual module handbooks given to you one you begin your studies.
Qualification outcomes
You have the option to build towards an MA just one module at a time.
Similarly, you may leave the programme with the interim awards of Postgraduate Certificate or Postgraduate Diploma.
These are standalone postgraduate awards in their own right but can also be stepping stones to an MA.
This is ideal if you wish to return to your studies after a break or are hesitant about committing to a full MA.
Experience
Discover facilities that help support your learning
Our MA Advanced Professional Practice course is located on the historic Bishop Otter campus in Chichester, which has a variety of facilities to allow you to get the best out of your time at university.
Close community
Our commitment to a friendly and close-knit student community contributes to a high degree of success for our graduates.
Expert staff
Learn from expert and experienced teaching staff who are here to support your needs.
Learning Resource Centre
The Learning Resource Centre (LRC) contains the library, a café, IT/teaching rooms, and the Support and Information Zone (SIZ).
Library
Our campus library holds more than 200,000 books and over 500,000 eBooks.
Subject specific librarians
If you have difficulty finding material for an essay, seminar or project, subject librarians will be happy to provide assistance.
Careers
Develop your practice and career opportunities in a variety of professional roles
The course is aimed primarily at qualified and experienced professionals already in role within and managers in professions that ‘work with people’ such as: social work, health, social care, early years, further and higher education, and other public service organisations.
The programme enables you to reflect on your own practice within your current role and to effect real change in your own organisation.
Nick
Course Costs
Course Fees 2024/25:
Fee per 10 credit module: £370
For further details about fees, please see our Tuition Fee page.
For further details about international scholarships, please see our Scholarships page.
University of Chichester alumni who have completed a full undergraduate degree at the University will receive a 15% discount on their postgraduate fees.
Entry Requirements
- An honours degree at 2:2 or higher in social work, nursing, occupational therapy or other related discipline
- If English is not your first language then English language proficiency required is IELTS 6.5 (with no element less than 5.5) – or equivalent qualification
- Relevant professional experience required
