MA Safeguarding Adults – Law, Policy and Practice

This program provides an exciting opportunity to study adult safeguarding at the Masters’s level through the lens of law, ethics, policy, and practice. Applying a variety of perspectives, you will interrogate case law, statutes, and law reform processes, academic research, policy documents, work practices, and professional guidance, in order to develop and enhance your critical and practical awareness of adult safeguarding. Each year we are delighted to have a number of guest speakers to teach on the MA, who are nationally and internationally renowned experts in their fields. In recent years, for example, we have invited guest speakers such as Alex Ruck Keene, Professor Suzy Braye, Professor Wayne Martin, and Dr. Margaret Flynn to contribute to the program.

Core Taught Modules

• The Emergence of Adult Safeguarding (30 credits)
• Safeguarding Adults: Interventions (30 credits)

Optional Modules

Mental Capacity

Safeguarding and Carers

Students may also substitute either of these two electives for a module from another M-level program offered by the Law School. Availability of these elective modules will depend on timetabling but may include:

• Equality, Discrimination, Minorities
• Human Rights and Global Politics
• Foundations and Principles of Child Care Law and Practice
• Contemporary Issues in Child Care Law and Practice
• Children and Medicine
• Looked After Children
• Education Law
• Introduction to Moral and Legal Concepts (in Medical Ethics and Law)
• Autonomy and Paternalism (in Medical Ethics and Law)
• Life, Death and Human Body
• Healthcare, Justice, and Society

Employability

The aims of this program are to introduce key principles of interdisciplinary socio-legal research methods and scholarship, facilitate the development of higher-level critical analysis, and develop the student’s capacity for original thinking in relation to the complex issues arising in socio-legal scholarship. More specifically, the program aims to:

• Develop a practical and theoretical understanding of safeguarding adults;
• Develop a critical awareness of the social and political contexts in which adult safeguarding law and practice is located;
• Develop a critical perspective in the assessment and evaluation of research, law scholarship, policy, and practice in adult safeguarding;
• Develop critical and analytical skills in order to interrogate practical legal problems and to justify decisions;
• Develop the ability to work independently in a coherent, focused, and productive way;
• Encourage interdisciplinarity through the student experience – inter-professional student groups, learning, and teaching provided by a range of academics, professionals, and policymakers.