This pioneering programme is tailored to the learning needs of busy health and social care professionals including three main course offerings:
The MSc Attachment Studies course provides students with a specific qualification in the assessment of child and adult attachment, parenting and family functioning. Designed for health and social care professionals, our aim is to prepare you to be at the forefront of the next generation of attachment scholars and practitioners.
This course is best suited for professionals who are interested in broadening their skills in assessing attachment, improving the outcome of interventions with their clients and conducting small or large scale research projects. Central to the programme is the Patricia Crittenden’s Dynamic Maturational Model of attachment combined with a culturally sensitive approach uniquely applicable to alleviate the suffering of distressed and traumatised people.
A unique feature of this programme is the opportunity to learn how to apply and conduct a wide range of assessments and procedures for forensic, clinical or research purposes. All students are required to learn to code at least one procedure where you will be able to achieve clinical or research levels of reliability in analysing the results. You can also learn to give and to analyse bio-physiological measures such as cortisol levels, EEG and heart rate variability.
Although this course does not offer therapeutic training, you will be taught by experts in the field to gain the necessary knowledge to formulate intervention plans and select therapeutic approaches that will benefit your clients.
You will gain a comprehensive understanding of attachment theory including the latest developments in the neuroscience of attachment relationships and parenting. Our systemic approach broadens the study of attachment from mothers and infants to the attachment of older children, adults, family systems and the wider social and community networks.
The interdisciplinary focus on both practice and research is invaluable for students interested in a research career in the field of attachment studies. Examples of recent and current PhD students’ research include the development of the Meaning of the Child to the Parent Interview, the physiology of developmental trauma (PTSD) in children, the effectiveness of play therapy with traumatised children, and attachment in chimpanzees reared by humans.
In this course, you will gain a variety of skillsets and knowledge through a substantial coverage of the underpinning attachment theory and research. This includes an understanding of the latest development in the neuroscience of attachment and trauma. You will study core concepts of attachment and Dynamic Maturational Model theory, family systems and object relations theory and primatology.
You will also gain a comprehensive knowledge in learning how to administer a wide range of validated attachment and family assessments applicable for use with adults and children of all ages. Examples of these procedures are:
This programme offers innovative modules such as the infant mental health module, research methods and the formulation of intervention plans. The infant mental health module is designed to deepen your knowledge of early years development and includes an introduction to the Infant CARE-Index. You will also observe a young child in a natural setting. Besides observing a traditional mother-child relationship, this assessment module also includes observations of older children, adults, family and wider systems.
The research methods module prepares you to design and carry out single case study or small sample empirical research. You will also be able to learn how to administer and analyse bio-physical assessments such as heart rate variability, cortisol and EGG and eye tracking.
The formulation module teaches you to interpret the results of attachment assessments and select the intervention most likely to succeed with a particular client or family. We also offer a forensic model of assessment designed for use with courts and other decision-making forums.
Full-time mode (1 year)
Compulsory modules
Compulsory modules (MSc students only)
Part-time mode (2 years)
Year 1
Compulsory module (MSc students only)
Stand-alone Postgraduate Certificate
Compulsory and Required modules
Compulsory and/or required modules may change when we review and update programmes. Above is a list of modules offered this academic year.
Optional modules
Optional modules, when offered as part of a programme, may vary from year to year and are subject to viability.
Our graduates go on to careers in health and social care, or undertake further study in fields such as Clinical Psychology. Students who already have a professional psychology background have been able to launch independent consultancies in social work and psychology.
This course aims to provide a therapeutic base for professionals who are working with children and adolescents. It will provide both the strategies and the underpinning theory for working with children and adolescents appealing to all professionals in this sector, e.g. teachers, counsellors, nursery nurses, social workers, youth workers etc. The course supports employability and career development in these fields. The theory will include developmental psychology attachment theory and the theoretical back ground to play therapy. It is a course that is suitable for CPD and carries 20 credits at the postgraduate level in Counselling/Psychotherapy and other areas. Teaching and learning methods are diverse and include seminars, group discussions, experiential exercises, and lectures. There are two assignments an essay and a case study or a critique of a relevant research paper.
The module is part-time and so is particularly suited to those in employment. It is also a course that carries twenty credits at Level 7, which can contribute to further study at Level 7.
-Child and adolescent development, including attachment theory (Bowlby), Eriksson and other developmental psychologists
-The theoretical background to play therapy, including Melanie Klein and Carl Jung
-Methods of working with children and adolescents that stem from the theoretical frameworks
-Current research into this area
-Legal and ethical issues involved in working with children and adolescents
A diverse range of learning and teaching strategies will be used including seminars, group discussion, case studies and case discussion experiential exercises, lectures. The experiential exercises will follow Kolb's Learning cycle.
A negotiated essay on a related topic. A case study or critique of a research paper.
We are committed to delivering academic learning of the highest quality, helping you to stretch your mind and fulfil your university ambitions.
We aim to create the perfect blend of knowledge, practical experience and relevance to equip UCLan graduates with the confidence and skills they need to get ahead in the world of work.
We have great links with employers including household names such as Sony, BAE Systems and Apple. We also have links with the smaller companies in the region and offer help and assistance to more than 1,000 of these – with many of our graduates staying in the region it is important we develop these relationships.
At UCLan we work with a range of businesses and organisations, many of which provide work experience opportunities and project briefs to enable to you gain real work experience whilst you undertake your postgraduate programme. Your course tutor will advise on opportunities available within your course and the UCLan Careers Team can provide help, advice and guidance on how to apply for them and how to make the most of these opportunities.
The UCLan Careers Team offer ongoing supportive careers advice and guidance throughout your course and after graduation, along with a range of modules, work experience opportunities and events to help you acquire the skills to make you stand out to potential employers in today’s competitive market.
This MA Criminology and Criminal Justice programme is designed to offer students, with or without a first degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice, the opportunity to progress academically and professionally. The programme builds on expertise and specialist interests across the Criminology and Social Work programmes. It offers students and professionals the opportunity for Continuing Professional Development.
A distinctive feature of the MA Criminology and Criminal Justice programme is that it is delivered 100 per cent online, affording the busy student the flexibility to access postgraduate study while maintaining other commitments. The lectures are delivered via Moodle software, allowing excellent flexibility for times and days of study. Students will experience the programme and its online inter-active approach, its relevance to the work place and its challenging blend of modules both stimulating and supportive. This also means that the programme can be studied internationally.
The range of modules are contemporary and relevant to the current criminal justice landscape and will help to build on a number of key skills that enhance the student’s critical thinking and in turn, will thrive in a professional environment. Students will acquire an extensive range of generic skills which are widely accepted as providing an excellent preparation for many careers. In addition to subject skills and knowledge, graduates also develop skills in communication, numeracy, teamwork, critical thinking, computing, and independent learning. All are highly valued by employers.
The MA Criminology and Criminal Justice programme integrates theory, social research, skills and professional experience, preparing students with critical thinking skills for employment in the workforce in criminal and community justice related settings. The programme aims to:
Trimester One
The MA Criminology and Criminal Justice programme begins with two core modules. The Advanced Research Methods module explores paradigms and methods for research in the criminal justice area as a prelude for the Research Project module to be undertaken by those progressing to the MA award. Students complete one other core module called Contemporary Crime and Justice which explores various types of offences and categories of offenders so that students develop a critical appreciation of how processes of justice understand and respond to particular types of offending.
Trimester Two
Students then have the option of completing two out of four modules which deal with issues of relevance across a range of criminal justice practice contexts. Attachment Theory has become increasingly important in child and adult context for understanding offending behaviour and so this module explores how attachment deficits are linked to crime. Substance Misuse is a cross cutting concern in a range of criminal justice contexts and therefore also forms the basis for a specific module of study. Negotiated Learning will give students the academic flexibility to study a topic of their own choosing, which could be related to their work. Finally, students have the option of studying Terrorism and its Consequences.
Each module is delivered weekly over 12 sessions.
Trimester Three
The MA concludes when students submit a Research Project based on primary research into an issue of criminological significance.
The information listed in this section is an overview of the academic content of the programme that will take the form of either core or option modules. Modules are designated as core or option in accordance with professional body requirements and internal academic framework review, so may be subject to change.
Each module (except the Research Project) requires students to complete a 5,000 word essay. Trimester Three requires students to complete a 12,000 word Research Project.
Glyndwr University offer excellent support for students with learning differences.
The MA Criminology and Criminal Justice programme allows students to reach their vocational aspirations, making them stand out to a wide range of employers attached to the fields of:
With further postgraduate study, career paths open to graduates may include Counselling Psychology, Forensic Psychology, Social Work or teaching and research.
This two year full-time programme integrates theoretical learning, clinical skills and in-depth personal development to prepare graduates for clinical practice, predominantly with children, as a professional play therapist within the public and private sectors.Based on a humanistic person-centred model of therapy, this course emphasises the use of play within a therapeutic relationship between the therapist and client to facilitate therapeutic change. The course encompasses theoretical, practical and experiential learning. With our holistic approach to teaching, you will be provided with thorough and systematic knowledge, experience, skills and the confidence to work as a professionally qualified play therapist. At the end of the course, you will be able to demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of therapeutic techniques and approaches that are required for professional registration purposes.
This course leads to a qualification that entitles you to registration as a Full Member of the British Association of Play Therapists (BAPT) whose register is accredited by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA). You will be taught by experienced practitioners who are practising play therapists and will bring the teaching on the course to life by drawing upon their own clinical experiences and case materials.
All students are required to be in personal therapy for the duration of the course and will complete two specified periods of supervised clinical placements alongside their studies. Key areas that you will study include human development and growth, play therapy theory and skills and young child observations (attachment theory). Integral to the programme is your own personal development which will be supported by personal therapy and experiential process groups.
This intense, rigorous and comprehensive programme is made up of ten modules that encompass the theoretical, practical and experiential learning experience required to become a professional play therapist. All modules are designed to prepare you for child-centred therapeutic practice that is theoretically sound and emotionally aware, complying with the core competencies of a play therapist as specified by the British Association of Play Therapists.
The clinical placements are a central component to the training in this programme. In your first year, the modules will include experiential learning to prepare you for your first work placement, as theoretical understanding will give you a strong grounding for your clinical practice. Your professional development is inter-related with the development of theoretical knowledge, skills and personal awareness. Within the clinical placements you will synthesise, integrate and apply all aspects of your learning into practise.
In the second year, you will build upon your play therapy skills and knowledge from your first year modules. You will have the opportunity to develop and explore your understanding of the theory and practice of play therapy in relation to working with different client groups and more complex needs. You will also synthesise your theoretical knowledge and clinical experience to pursue your research interest in the Research Portfolio module. A clinical issue, your own clinical work or a professional issue may provide the inspiration for this research project. Recent research areas have included: child-centred play therapy and the use of therapeutic boundaries, play therapy and unresolved bereavement issues, play therapy in schools, and play therapy and different cultural beliefs.
We also offer introductory courses that provide a useful background to those working in related professions or anyone simply wishing to find out more about the work.
See answers to frequently asked questions about the MA Play Therapy.
Year 1 (full-time)
Year 2 (full-time)
Compulsory and Required modules
Compulsory and/or required modules may change when we review and update programmes. Above is a list of modules offered this academic year.
Optional modules
Optional modules, when offered as part of a programme, may vary from year to year and are subject to viability.
Graduates work as a registered play therapist for both the private and public sectors.
We also offer weekend introductory courses, 5 day Summer Schools, and 20 week part time evening Foundation Courses which provide a useful background in related professions. For more information, see our Psychology Short Courses.
Physician Associate (formerly known as Physician Assistant) is a rapidly growing healthcare role in the UK, working alongside doctors in hospitals and in GP surgeries. Physician Associates support doctors in the diagnosis and management of patients. They are trained to perform a number of roles including: taking medical histories, performing examinations, analysing test results, and diagnosing illnesses under the direct supervision of a doctor.
To understand what a Physician Associate does on a day-to-day basis, Health Education England have produced this informative Day in the Life of a Physician Associate video.
We also run a flexible MSc Physician Associate programme for those who already have their Postgraduate Diploma from a UK or Irish institution.
Please note: the British Physician Associate programme does not qualify you to work in the USA.
The University of Birmingham has been training Physician Associates (formerly Physician Assistants) since January 2008. As one of the longest running programmes in the country, we are delighted to offer this opportunity to graduates to make a valuable contribution to the nation’s health. We work in partnership with hospitals and practices in the Midlands and beyond.
The development of the profession has been led by the Department of Health and has involved the Royal Colleges of Physicians and of General Practitioners as well as the profession itself through the former UK Association of Physician Associates (UKAPA) which is now the Faculty of Physician Associates at the Royal College of Physicians. University of Birmingham staff have taken a key role in the development of the programme at a national as well as a regional level in response to need identified by local healthcare providers. Successful completion of the programme will qualify you to practise as a Physician Associate in the UK.
Please note: the UK PA training programme does not qualify you to work in the USA.
The course
The course leaders regard integration of theory and practice as fundamental to clinical learning.
Regulation
All students will be registered with the Faculty of Physician Associates at the Royal College of Physicians. Graduates currently join a Managed Voluntary Register.
This is a very intense course with a large amount of knowledge and skills to acquire in a relatively short time. You will need to dedicate at least 50 hours each week to learning, much of it by yourself and with your learning set.
At the University of Birmingham we believe in very close integration between the theory learning (‘the hip is a ball and socket joints and the femur anatomy is as follows’ and clinical learning (‘when people fracture their hips it happens like this, they present like this, and your understanding of the hip anatomy enables you to understand why and how hips fracture’). You will also link theory and practice by learning, say, how to examine a hip on each other, on a simulated patient and (often) on a real patient before you see such a patient in a clinical environment.
Birmingham-trained Physician Associates have been very successful in the NHS jobs market with most of our graduates on NHS Agenda for Change Band 7 (starting at £31,383 p,a.) or higher.
Our graduates are working all across the UK (although about half have stayed in the West Midlands) and in a wide range of specialties including: general medicine, acute medicine, cardiology, paediatrics, breast surgery, trauma and orthopaedics, mental health, emergency medicine and General Practice. Many have also chosen to go into teaching and research (part-time while maintaining clinical duties), with five of our graduates currently teaching here at Birmingham.
The number of NHS Trusts and Practices seeking Physician Associates (and the average number working for each Trust/Practice) has increased rapidly throughout the last few years, and we would expect that number to continue to increase at a similar pace over the next few years.
This programme provides training in counselling and psychotherapy to become eligible for the BACP (British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy) individual practitioner accreditation. This three year part-time postgraduate degree is especially designed to provide you with the skills, knowledge and expertise necessary to work in primary and secondary schools making a positive impact in children and young people’s mental health.
This course helps you to become a practitioner who is able to work with child and adolescent clients one-to-one, who present with diverse psychological issues in a variety of settings including both mainstream and special education, children’s hospitals and children’s and adolescent’s mental health (CAMHS). You will become critically reflective and develop an enquiring attitude to theory, research and practice in complex areas of counselling and psychotherapy especially in respect to working with children and adolescents.
Based on the approach for the Integrative and Counselling Psychotherapy course, our integrative approach, is at the forefront of counselling and psychotherapy theory, practice and research. It incorporates aspects from three main therapeutic traditions; person-centred, attachment-based and psychodynamic. You will be encouraged to explore psychological processes and experiences from these different perspectives, and recognise the theoretical, personal and cultural assumptions which influence your work.
This programme includes a focus on both child centred (based on Carl Roger’s person centred approach) and psychodynamic perspectives and integrates these within a framework for understanding psychological and mental growth. Throughout the programme, you will develop a high level of awareness of self and the demands of the therapeutic process. This will be achieved through your own personal therapy and via small group clinical supervision that runs parallel to the practice placements.
You will be taught by leading experts in the field who lead on cutting-edge research projects and who have excellent links to school based counselling and child and adolescent psychopathology underpinned by our research centres CREST – Centre for Research in Social & Psychological Transformations CARICAW- Centre for Applied Research & assessment in Child and Adolescent Wellbeing.
As well as cognitive and reflective skills, you will also learn practical ways of working with your clients in a therapeutic relationship to address conscious and unconscious needs and produce a change in emotional and cognitive processes and behaviour. This involves integrating complex and advanced skills, and responding creatively to complex, novel and unpredictable situations.
Our unique MSc Research Methods in Psychology programme allows you to study theory while benefitting from hands-on research experience.
It covers the breadth of contemporary psychological research methods and allows you to develop research approaches to studying psychology, from the level of social groups through to neuro-imaging of brain activity.
Our MSc Research Methods in Psychology programme is designed to provide you with expertise in psychological research methods appropriate for the behavioural sciences.
You will develop the skills necessary for critically evaluating research, formulating innovative research questions, conducting empirical research, and analysing, interpreting and reporting research results.
The programme covers the breadth of contemporary psychological research methods, allowing you to develop research approaches that combine multiple methods in unique ways. By the end of the programme, you will have developed an individual profile of research skills.
The programme also provides an ideal stepping stone for research at PhD level.
This programme is studied full-time over one academic year and part-time students must study at least two taught technical modules per academic year. It consists of eight taught modules and a dissertation.
Example module listing
The following modules are indicative, reflecting the information available at the time of publication. Please note that not all modules described are compulsory and may be subject to teaching availability and/or student demand.
Students who have completed the Psychology programmes have progressed to a range of careers in areas such as local government, management, research posts in universities and commercial organisations, healthcare and clinical psychology, and many have progressed on to study for a PhD.
We believe in involving all postgraduate students in the research life of the School through active participation in one of the research groups, attendance at research seminars and, where possible, an attachment to ongoing research projects.
As a student of the Department of Psychology, you will also have access to a number of conferences, seminars and workshops hosted throughout the year.
The programme provides opportunities for students to develop and demonstrate knowledge and understanding, skills, qualities and other attributes in the following areas:
Knowledge and understanding
Intellectual / cognitive skills
Professional practical skills
Key / transferable skills
We often give our students the opportunity to acquire international experience during their degrees by taking advantage of our exchange agreements with overseas universities.
In addition to the hugely enjoyable and satisfying experience, time spent abroad adds a distinctive element to your CV.
If you are interested in the world around you, like to engage in deep questions about the nature of life, religion and religious traditions and wish to communicate your enthusiasm with young people, this course will prepare you to do this effectively.
The aim of the Religious Education course is to develop reflective teachers who care about developing pupils’ understanding about the world around them and want to foster pupils’ appreciation of different beliefs, practices and religions. You will be encouraged to develop effective and inspirational practical teaching skills underpinned by a sound grasp of theoretical concepts.
Successful completion of the course will lead to the award Qualified Teacher Status along with 60 credits towards a Masters.
PGCE: programme structure
