Anyone doing Social Care at OU, com,e talk to me please!

[sississy]

I am looking into starting a OU course in September this year and the only courses that interests me are social care and social work.
I wish I could do social work straight away but apparently I need to be sponsored by an employer and I am a self employed childminder so no chance.
The plan is to do a degree in social care, get qualified and a job and than find a sponsor for a social work course afterwards.
Do you think it is worth it? i will be 35 in March.
I don't want to consider any other kind of university, I want to study from home on wy own pace and still be there for my family. I have done he whole university thing when I was young back in my country 10 years ago (Home Economics/Community Social Care course) and I am not interested to go to campus and spend hours travelling etc.
So if you are studying Social Care with OU or working in the field, please come and talk to me.
thanks

Hello

I'm doing K101 an introduction to health and social care at the OU at the moment and really enjoying it. It started off a bit slow and dull but is now really interesting. I'm applying to brick uni's to do a degree in social work starting september. I'm going to be 34 in May and I def think it's worth it, also I think social work is a career that tends to attract more mature students.

I think to get sponsored by a council you need to work for them for 2 years before they'll do it but there may be other organisations that will sponsor you. You have to do 100 days on placement in years 2 and 3 to qualify but I guess if you're working for someone who will sponsor you and oversee the placement there might be lots of options of who could sponsor you. I could give you more advice on how to get onto a course at a uni as that's what I've been looking into but I don't know much else about the sponsored route. Maybe if you got a degree through the OU in social care you could find something working in a similar area to social workers?

Your best bet is probably to call the OU and ask their advice, they're super helpful and will know how you can get the qualification.

There's loads of people in your situation on the course I'm doing at the moment, they were all discussing it in the forum recently, let me know if I can be of any more help.