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New Lunchtime Seminar - Community Development in Social Work: widening the circle beyond health and social care

19 May 2026

Join us for this Lunchtime Seminar that explores how community development is expanding within social work and how it is evolving beyond traditional health and social care settings.

The Social Work and Community Development Approaches programme (SWCDA), established in 2018 was designed to address a long-standing gap in post-qualifying training for social workers. Successful completion of the programme leads to a Northern Ireland Social Care Council Specialist Award and 90 level seven academic credits. Supported by the Department of Health, the programme brings together trainers, practitioners and educators to strengthen skills in working creatively with and within communities.

Fergal O’Brien (Southern Health and Social Care Trust) will showcase practitioners from across a wide range of settings in Northern Ireland, highlighting how learning from the programme has been applied into real-life practice. A range of speakers will also present their own work to inform future learning.

The seminar builds on a highly successful regional and international launch of the Community Development in Social Work Learning Zone resource and will build fresh content across new sectors and settings.

Key areas covered in this Lunchtime Seminar will include:

  • A preview of the Community Development in Social Work Learning Zone resource
  • An introduction to the SWCDA programme
  • Real-life social work applications of community development including previous SWCDA candidates across sectors including justice, education, community/voluntary sector, and the Patient Client Council
  • Outcomes for service users, agencies and the wider profession
  • An Independent review of the Social Care Council website from experts

Find out more and book your place here.


System downtime

System upgrade - Notice of March downtime Due to a planned system upgrade, our App and MyPortal online services will be offline from 8am to 3pm on Tuesday, 10 March 2026. We apologise for any inconvenience.