At the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, they are developing an eLearning course for social workers who are interested in doing a modest piece of practitioner research but have no experience in writing research proposals.

This 12-week course will help you to write a research question, consider appropriate methods for answering it and prepare a proposal that will withstand scrutiny at research ethics or research governance committees. This course will also provide online teaching materials on research methods and statistics.

They are currently recruiting a group of 8 volunteers to pilot the course, starting on 14th January 2008. The course will take approximately 5-10 hours of study time each week, but as this is distance learning it can be made to fit in around existing work and home commitments. To ensure your commitment to completing the module, they are asking for a modest charge of £100 for the course, £50 of which will be returned on completion of the assignments.

On successful completion of the course students will receive 30 academic credits at masters level and 30 credits in the Post-Qualifying Framework for Social Work at Higher Specialist / Advanced Level (subject to approval by the Institute of Psychiatry Teaching Committee and their APEL arrangements).

The development of this course is funded by a grant from the Skills for Care Innovation Fund.

For further information, visit the website here. or email martin.webber@iop.kcl.ac.uk.