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This three-year, full-time degree course will give you a foundation in the theory of clinical and community psychology as well as hands-on experience. If you’re interested in working in the field of mental health, or in initiating sustainable change in vulnerable and marginalised communities, this is for you.

Unusually for an undergraduate psychology degree, you’ll be introduced to psychopathology and approaches to people in mental distress in your first year. You’ll study mental health problems such as anxiety, schizophrenia, eating disorders and bipolar disorder. There are also options to study the psychology of drug addiction and crime.

We’ll introduce you to community psychology with a critical edge that is political in the broadest sense. You’ll look at how issues such as poverty, opportunity, education, employment and housing impact on a person’s ability to negotiate the world.

From the moment you join us you’ll have opportunities to put theory into practice through placements within the local community, working within voluntary projects or the NHS.

You’ll also learn how to gather, analyse and write up evidence-based practice research, a vital skill in many fields of work.

This is not your ‘bog-standard’ degree, explains co-course leader Dr Mike Chase. “The key thing is, you’re out there. You’re involved with the community and informing and changing practice. It’s applied psychology. You’re developing an understanding from being and doing as opposed to sitting in a lecture theatre.”

The key term here is ‘community-based’. This means we’ll support you in finding an organisation to work for and with whom you can develop a partnership. Together with the organisation you’ll identify a service to be evaluated, or a problem to be researched. You’ll help them do this, with a view to producing a report recommending changes in practice.
 
The course is highly interactive, with regular guest speakers from the local community, including mental health service users.  

You’ll have a course tutor to support your academic and career development, module leaders for the various subjects you study and tutors for each year group. We’ll also allocate a personal tutor to you so that you can discuss any issues you may have.

And, rest assured, you’ll have access to superb facilities at our Stratford campus, including specialist psychological laboratories and equipment, a large computing centre and a new library.

Dr Sharon Cahill, co-course leader, says, “We say to you – bring your own experience. What have you got to offer? This is not just an academic course, although we do ask for higher UCAS points.

"We are saying to students that this is an opportunity to make a difference, not only in your own life but to your colleagues and the community that you live in or represent, whether it’s by your ethnicity or sexuality. Whatever your community is – you have a big opportunity here.” 

We’ve designed this degree to give you a competitive edge when it comes to gaining a place on a postgraduate course. If you decide to go straight into work, the experience you’ll have gained from placements in clinical and community settings will maximise your job prospects too.

Your degree could be your first step towards becoming a clinical psychologist. It may also lead directly to other graduate employment opportunities within the NHS, public sector or charitable and voluntary sector organisations.

The placements and extracurricular opportunities open to you on this course mean you are more likely to have a chance of taking that next step towards your goal, whatever that may be.

And having a degree recognised by the British Psychology Society means an opening to careers in a wide range of other areas, such as sport and leisure, education, human resources, consumer research and advertising, and the media.