Social Work (Campus Geel)

Social Work

About Social Work

The Social Work Department wants to be a three-year basic training of high quality preparing students to be social workers, socio-cultural workers, human resources managers or social counsellors, in a dynamic, multidisciplinary and multicultural society. In the thirty years of its existence, the Social Work department has succeeded in building a valuable network of relations with (professionals in) social organisations in the wide region. Students experience this from the wide offer of work placements, and from the organisations who add experience and questions to the programme of courses and assignments. We continually search for ways to create a win-win-situation both for our students and for the partner organisations involved, e.g. by organising seminars about problems relevant to the work field.

Options:

Community Educational and Cultural Work

Course content
Community Educational and Cultural Work are trained to organise and coach educational programmes, cultural activities and processes of social activation in the broad socio-cultural field, i.e. in youth work, socio-cultural work with adults, community work, cultural centres etc. Professionals in this option are also assigned tasks of organisational administration and policy development.

Work placement
A three-months’ work placement will offer an excellent opportunity to gain experience and prove that you can indeed put the acquired knowledge into practice.

Job opportunities
You can do youth work, work in cultural or community centres, neighbourhood community work, regional integration centres, Amnesty International, trade unions or adult associations, community centres or centres for basic education.

Personnel Management

Course content
Those who graduate in the option Personnel Management have received a comprehensive training including both personnel administration and personnel management in firms and companies, non-profit-organisations and public services. The professional activities of personnel managers encompass the entire careers of staff members, i.e. personnel planning (staff selection and recruitment), personnel development (on-the-job training, career coaching), terms of employment, labour conditions, industrial relations and organisational development.

Work placement
A three-months’ work placement will offer an excellent opportunity to gain experience and prove that you can indeed put the acquired knowledge into practice.

Job opportunities
You can work in a personnel administration service, in the recruitment department, education and training, as head of a personnel sector or as a Human Resources manager, or in all kinds of jobs in social secretariats, interim- and selection bureaus, controlling and advising organisations.

Social Advice and Legal Services

Course content
The option Social Advice and Legal Services focuses on socio-juridical help, offered by social organisations such as trade unions, health insurance companies, social secretariats, public agencies etc. Essential components of the social counsellor’s work are: social law application, wages and social benefits administration, familiarising people with their rights and duties, mediating between people and agencies. In social organisations assistance is often connected with advocacy and lobbying.

Work placement
A three-months’ work placement will offer an excellent opportunity to gain experience and prove that you can indeed put the acquired knowledge into practice.

Job opportunities
You can work in ombudsman bureaus and social services of the government and the profit sector; in local employment services, social housing services, tenant unions, mutual insurances, trade unions, General Child Benefit Funds, social secretariats, court houses.

Social Work

Course content
The option Social Work trains assistants to work for the many autonomous or incorporated social services of the welfare society. Providing clients with help and psycho-social guidance, advising decision-making authorities belong to the core of the social worker’s profession. Social workers point out to agencies what the social backgrounds of people’s problems are and, by doing so, they both prevent and remedy.

Work placement
A three-months’ work placement will offer an excellent opportunity to gain experience and prove that you can indeed put the acquired knowledge into practice.

Job opportunities
You can work in many public services such as Public Social Assistance Centre, the Youth Counselling Centre, prisons, court houses, special treatment clinics for drugs and alcohol, centres for student counselling, special youth care.