In the contemporary social work and human services work environment, there is increasing demand for skilled project managers to improve systems, processes and programs. Funders and philanthropic organisations are also demanding design thinking and the centring of lived experience as the basis of developing more responsive and impactful policies, services, and programs.

In this course, you will work in teams to apply your existing social work knowledge and skills to a project identified by RMIT Social Work Field Education partners. Using the provided project management frameworks and tools, you will engage with design thinking processes and activities to build your capacity in project management, human-centred and creative problem-solving to develop, justify and manage a credible intervention idea that centres lived experiences of users, plan for its evaluation and present it to Social Work Field Education partners.

This course is run intensively and is designed to simulate the realistic design, development and evaluation of an intervention using a human-centred design process. It also provides an overview of what constitutes a project management skillset in contemporary social work and human services settings.

This course will prepare you to effectively engage with professional and other community stakeholders and to design, manage and evaluate inclusive, theoretically sound, and human-centred projects that can be implemented in the real world.

The course is staffed by people experienced in project design and development, service design, lived experience leadership and social work, and who will support you to develop your learnings and to apply them in practice.

Please note that if you take this course for a Bachelor Honours program, your overall mark in this course will be one of the course marks that will be used to calculate the weighted average mark (WAM) that will determine your award level. (This applies to students who commence enrolment in a bachelor honours program from 1 January 2016 onwards. See the WAM information web page for more information.