Graduate Diploma in Residential Work (Children's)
Subject and course type
- Social work
- Social work and social care
- Postgraduate
- Undergraduate
This course gives you the expertise to thrive in your social care career while enhancing the lives of vulnerable people. Embrace this unique hands-on learning experience to boost your skills and confidence in working with children in residential care.
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Elevate your career in residential care
Immerse yourself in a programme that will develop your leadership skills and therapeutic care expertise while you work in a residential setting
Gain knowledge and skills grounded in evidence-based practices while developing your career working with young people. This employment-based course is aimed at those working in full-time or part-time roles with children in a residential settings looking to enhance their practice.
To ensure this course reflects the most pressing needs of children in residential care, we engaged with broader stakeholder groups, getting input from local authorities, commissioning groups, government representatives, and those involved in children's social care.
Whether you’re a first-time practitioner or an aspiring manager, a Graduate Diploma in Residential Work is an important step in your career. We’ll focus on deepening your understanding of children’s needs and enhancing your practical skills to excel in your role.
This is not a typical university course. We know that practical and relational skills are pivotal for residential workers, so we’ve created a course that reflects this. You'll collaborate in vibrant spaces to connect, share knowledge, and learn from peers. Your assessments will reflect this approach, offering you opportunities to immerse yourself in virtual and augmented reality scenarios and have your skills evaluated in dynamic, real-world settings.
We are ambitious about improving quality in residential care by developing a highly-skilled workforce, equipped to support children with complex needs. By applying your learning to your day-to-day work, you will enhance your practice using social pedagogy. With a growing demand for specialist practitioners, this advanced qualification forms a valuable step towards furthering your career in residential care.
Why choose this course
This programme is ideal for professionals aiming to excel in residential care roles, those looking to transition to leadership positions, or managers seeking to deepen their expertise. You’ll explore topics such as relationship-based practice, safeguarding, managing risk and effective intervention strategies. Kingston University’s connections with leading care providers ensure practical, hands-on training complemented by expert faculty guidance.
Curated in association with Lighthouse Pedagogy Trust, this course combines real-world case studies with our TEF Gold standard teaching practices. This course is endorsed by the Social Pedagogy Professional Association. You will gain the title of ‘Social Pedagogy Practitioner’ upon successful completion of the course.
Importantly, you will cover the mandatory Level 3 Residential Childcare Diploma requirements which all children's home practitioners need (so you won't need to study for separate qualifications). The course also offers an optional manager pathway, covering the Level 5 Diploma requirements.
This is a hybrid-distance learning course, aimed at those working full or part time in residential care or a similar setting alongside your studies. This approach allows you to apply the knowledge gained from the course immediately, making a positive impact on a daily basis.
There will be periodic in-person learning sessions (approximately 1 day every six weeks) to foster connections and peer learning. The remaining learning sessions will take place online, allowing for flexibility with different work schedules and for people to participate who are not local to Kingston University.
Course modules are designed to cover:
- The history, context and current challenges of the residential care sector.
- Abuse and trauma and how to apply social pedagogy therapeutically.
- Knowledge and applied skill in trauma-informed approaches and relationship-based practices.
- Children’s rights, safeguarding and child protection.
- Knowledge and skills to critically reflect on your practice and develop professional confidence.
- Relational leadership and management skills in social care settings.
Endorsement
This course has a Category 2 endorsement from the Social Pedagogy Professional Association (SPPA).
Links with business and industry
The course has been co-designed in collaboration with Lighthouse Pedagogy Trust – a charity that creates children's homes where children can thrive. The design process involved consultations with several children's home organisations to ensure the course is suitable for a diverse range of residential settings. This included input across a broad spectrum of roles – from directors and registered managers to practitioners who are currently pursuing qualifications.
Additionally, we engaged with broader stakeholder groups, including local authorities, commissioning groups, government representatives, and those involved in children's social care.
Course content
Core modules
Modules
30 credits
This module explores the history, context, and current challenges of Residential Care and similar settings. You will critically reflect on what has brought you into the work, what your motivations and experiences are in the sector, and how these play out in your practice in the home, both with the children, your team, and other professionals. Together you will explore what brought you into this work and what it means for you collectively to be working as part of a team supporting children in a children's home (or similar setting).
The module explores 'care versus control' narratives in the social care sector and in the institutions and systems that contextualise children's lives in a children's home (or similar setting), and introduces social pedagogy as a value base for your work. Knowledge of what has brought the children to the home, and of the wider systems and structures of care, allows you to critique practice and to develop professional confidence and assertiveness in advocating for children and young people.
30 credits
This module provides you with the breadth and depth of knowledge of abuse, neglect and trauma that you need for working with children in Residential Care and similar settings. You will gain knowledge of different kinds of abuse and their impacts on children and young people, focusing on harm inside and outside the home, such as sexual exploitation and county lines activity. You will build on your introduction to social pedagogy in The Big Picture to consider how as a holistic approach to wellbeing it can be used to understand children and families' experiences of abuse, neglect, and trauma.
You will explore environmental and social factors within which harms occur, and the relationship between these contextual factors, the harms, their impacts and professional responses. You will apply your learning from The Big Picture when considering the social context in which harm is caused to young people. The module will teach you safeguarding and support remits, roles and responsibilities, and you will critically reflect and apply your knowledge from this module to your learning and skills development across the other modules.
30 credits
This module equips you with Social Pedagogy theories, approaches and tools for working with children and young people in Residential Care and similar settings. The module develops knowledge and applied skill in trauma-informed approach and relationship-based practice, including tools such as Motivational Interviewing Techniques. The module gives you the knowledge, skills and confidence to work therapeutically with children and young people as a Social Pedagogy Practitioner (qualifying at Level 6). You will apply knowledge from The Big Picture to critically consider the context in which you are working therapeutically with children who have experienced trauma, and will practise your skills in these therapeutic methods both individually and with your peers on the course.
You will also apply your understanding from The Hard Stuff to your skills practice on this module, demonstrating how your contextualised knowledge of abuse, neglect and developmental trauma, factor into therapeutic decisions about how best to approach healing opportunities for children in residential care and similar settings. You will develop your ability to ‘reflect-in-action' in order to hone skills in adapting therapeutic techniques in response to children's needs.
Optional modules (choose one)
Modules
30 credits
This module provides you with knowledge of children's laws, rights, regulations and policies, and the skill and professional confidence to apply this for the benefit of young people you work with in residential care and similar settings. You will develop a working knowledge of children's health, education and social care rights, with the assertive acumen to advocate for them within the systems that you, they, and the home (or similar setting) find yourselves. You will apply knowledge gained from The Big Picture to critically analyse children and young people's experiences within the policy and legal context of Residential Care and similar settings, practising your advocacy role within this system.
Social Pedagogy values and approaches will form the ethical basis of this knowledge application, and you will practise your skills in speaking up for yourself, your profession, your organisation, and most importantly – the children and young people you're charged with looking after and advocating for. You will use knowledge and skill from the other modules to explore how to put your professional expertise into practice in professional networks as a Social Pedagogy Practitioner.
30 credits
This module will give you skills, knowledge and confidence to lead a children's home or similar setting, grounded in understanding of what it is to be a leader. You will explore different leadership styles, approaches and theories to find your own voice as a leader and registered manager. Using social pedagogy approaches and ethos, you will develop professional leadership in order to guide the home, your team, and positive outcomes for the children, young people, and young adults you work with.
You will develop a working knowledge of all the regulatory requirements and responsibilities of a registered manager, with a strong focus on exercising these with relational leadership skill and critical awareness of the wider context of your work within residential care or similar settings.
Knowing your own drivers and what led you to this work, understanding your team's motivations, and empathising with young people's lived experiences will allow you to lead with skill and professional confidence. This module will equip you with professional confidence to lead as a Social Pedagogy Practitioner.
What career opportunities does this course offer?
Choose a career path to suit your preference
Graduates of this course will be equipped to work as social pedagogy practitioners, leading with skill and confidence across children’s social care roles. Common job roles for our graduates vary, including:
- Residential staff in a children's home
- Registered manager of a children's home
- Social pedagogy practitioner – Level 6
- Support worker for young people
You’ll qualify as a practitioner or manager in a children's home, and gain social pedagogy practitioner status, all within a single qualification.
Our teaching team has strong links with the NHS, education and healthcare providers and social services. We also offer classic postgraduate programmes alongside research and continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities.
Complete mandatory qualifications
By incorporating the mandatory requirements for a Level 3 Residential Childcare Diploma, you’ll be qualified to work in a children’s home and will enhance your career prospects as a specialist practitioner. Should you choose to pursue a leadership role, by selecting the Head of the Household module, you’ll qualify as a registered manager (meeting the Level 5 Leadership and Management for Residential Childcare requirements).
Teaching and assessment
When not attending timetabled sessions, you will be expected to continue learning independently through self-study. This typically will involve reading journal articles and books, working on individual and group projects, and undertaking and preparing coursework assignments and presentations. Your independent learning is supported by a range of excellent facilities including online resources, the library and CANVAS – the online virtual learning platform.
Our academic support team here at Kingston University provides help in a range of areas.
The Level 6 Graduate Diploma course has been designed at a higher academic level than the current requirement for residential care work with children, to reflect the complexity of the role and depth of skill required to support children with high-level needs. It is accessible to those without prior higher education experience and offers flexible learning opportunities for students with higher education experience.
As a student at Kingston University, we will make sure you have access to appropriate advice regarding your academic development. You will also be able to use the University's support services.
A course is made up of modules, and each module is worth a number of credits. You must pass a given number of credits in order to achieve the award you registered on, for example 360 credits for a typical undergraduate course or 180 credits for a typical postgraduate course. The number of credits you need for your award is detailed in the programme specification which you can access from the link at the bottom of this page.
One credit equates to 10 hours of study. Therefore 180 credits across a year (typical for a postgraduate course) would equate to 1,800 notional hours. These hours are split into scheduled and guided. On this course, the percentage of that time that will be scheduled learning and teaching activities is shown below. The remainder is made up of guided independent study.
- 25% scheduled learning and teaching
The exact balance between scheduled learning and teaching and guided independent study will be informed by the modules you take.
This is a distance-learning course, where you work full or part time in residential care or a similar setting.
Assessment on each module comprises practicals to assess skills, values, and application of social pedagogy approaches, and coursework to assess knowledge and critical reflection. The approximate percentage for how you will be assessed on this course is as follows:
- 50% coursework
- 50% practical
We aim to provide feedback on assessments within 20 working days.
Fees and funding
| Fee Category | Annual Fee |
|---|---|
| Home (UK students) | Part Time Distance Learning £7,438 |
| International | Part Time Distance Learning £16,600 |
| Fee Category | Annual Fee |
|---|---|
| Home (UK students) | Part Time Distance Learning £7,293 |
| International | Part Time Distance Learning £7,293 |
Scholarships and bursaries
For students interested in studying the Graduate Diploma in Residential Work (Children’s) at Kingston, there are several opportunities to seek funding support:
Your employer may sponsor you to study this course.
If you are an international student, find out more about scholarships and bursaries.
Kingston University is pleased to offer a 10% discount on full-time and part-time postgraduate degree course tuition fees (including PGCE courses) to our alumni. Visit our Alumni discount page to find out more.
Additional course costs
Some courses may require additional costs beyond tuition fees. When planning your studies, you’ll want to consider tuition fees, living costs, and any extra costs that might relate to your area of study.
Your tuition fees include costs for teaching, assessment and University facilities. So your access to libraries, shared IT resources and various student support services are all covered. Accommodation and general living expenses are not covered by these fees.
Where applicable, additional expenses for your course may include:
Our libraries have an extensive collection of books and journals, as well as open-access computers and laptops available to rent. However, you may want to buy your own computer or personal copies of key textbooks. Textbooks may range from £50 to £250 per year. And a personal computer can range from £100 to £3,000 depending on your course requirements.
While most coursework is submitted online, some modules may require printed copies. You may want to allocate up to £100 per year for hard-copies of your coursework. It’s worth noting that 3D printing is never compulsory. So if you choose to use our 3D printers, you’ll need to pay for the material. This ranges from 3p per gram to 40p per gram
Kingston University will pay for all compulsory field trips. Fees for optional trips can range from £30 to £350 per trip.
Your tuition fees don’t cover travel costs. To save on travel costs, you can use our intersite bus service. This route links the campuses and halls of residence with local train stations - Surbiton, Kingston upon Thames and Norbiton.
Courses involving placements or direct work with vulnerable groups may require a DBS check or other security checks.
If you choose to do a placement year, travel costs will vary depending on your location. These costs could be up to £2,000.
Some courses may require professional memberships.
How to apply
Before you apply
Please read the entry criteria carefully to make sure you meet all requirements before applying.
How to apply online
Make sure you choose the right start date and mode of attendance to apply for.
If you’re starting a new application, you’ll need to select ‘new user’ and set up a username and password. This will allow you to save and return to your application.
Application deadlines
We encourage you to apply as soon as possible. Applications will close when the course is full.
Information required to confirm your place
If English is not your first language, we will require proof of your proficiency to allow us to confirm your place on the course. This will generally be either an IELTS or TOEFL test certificate, which can be forwarded to us after you have submitted your application. If you do not hold a formal English language qualification, please indicate how you have acquired your proficiency in written and spoken English.
After you have applied
For courses that select on application alone, applicants should normally receive an initial decision or a request for more information within four to six weeks of receipt of their application. Our admissions team will notify you of the decision by email.
Learn more about the postgraduate application process in detail.
Course changes and regulations
The information on this page reflects the currently intended course structure and module details. To improve your student experience and the quality of your degree, we may review and change the material information of this course. Find out more about course changes
Programme Specifications for the course are published ahead of each academic year.
Regulations governing this course can be found on our website.
