Youth Work & Community Development BA (Hons) (with Foundation Year)

The Foundation Year is a great opportunity if you have the ability and enthusiasm to study for a degree, but do not yet have the qualifications required to enter directly onto our degree programmes. A significant part of the Foundation Year focuses upon core skills such as academic writing at HE level, becoming an independent learner, structuring academic work, critical thinking, time management and note taking.

Successful completion of the Foundation Year will enable you to progress into the first year (Level C) of your chosen honours degree.

Introduction to Youth Work and Community Development

Your first year provides you with the knowledge of the key areas that underpin Youth Work and Community Development. You will study:

Introduction to Youth Work

You will study the history of youth work and relevant social policy that has shaped youth work. Learning from the impact of the industrial revolution to the contemporary context and how youth work has evolved though time.

You will investigate the key concepts within youth work, developing their ideas of what youth work is, where youth work takes place and key purposes of youth work practice. You will also focus on the core understandings required in youth work, including exploring ethics and values.

Introduction to Community Development

Community Development has a long and diverse history. You will explore this history to support your introduction to the practice of community development, including the Settlement Movement.

You will begin to explore the meanings of ‘community’ and different types of communities that exists. You will study the key theoretical ideas that underpin and frame community development and connect with relevant social policy.

Introduction to Youth Work and Community Development Management

You will study key ideas of how youth and community development is managed in practice. You will start to learn the fundamental principles involved in self-management and reflection needed for professional practice.

Contemporary Studies and Social Justice

You will build your understandings of the issues of oppression, inequality and power to begin to explore the role of youth work and community development in promoting people’s rights fostering social justice and anti- oppressive practice within practice.

You will also explore perspectives on the social construction of age, gender, ‘race’ and sexuality to connect with key debates focused on risky behaviours and crime, LGBTQI+ identities, health and wellbeing for young people and issues of ‘race’ and racism. You will also explore health and wellbeing at a community level, connecting with contemporary issues including mental health and food insecurity.

Professional Practice

Through the Professional Practice teaching, you will learn more in depth the National Occupational Standards for both Youth Work and Community Development. You will start to build your understanding of core practice knowledge including safeguarding, professional identity, ethics and values and undertake their first practice placement experience

Explorations in Youth Work and Community Development

Across this second-year you will explore key theoretical perspectives in youth work and community development and apply this new understanding in practice through further practice placement experiences.

Explorations in Youth Work

You will develop your knowledge and understanding of central theoretical ideas, concepts and perspectives. Teaching is focused on the cornerstones of youth work; participation, empowerment, education and equality to ensure these values are reflected in practice.

You will hone your understanding of the importance of key practice skills including, conversation and dialogue, relationship building and facilitating learning with young people through youth work.

Explorations in Community Development

Teaching is focus on the theoretical and practical models and methods to support you to develop your skills of application in practice. Within Explorations in Community Development you will explore key theorists, including bell hooks, Paulo Freire, Antonio Gramsci and Saul Alinsky and connect these theorists with contemporary practice.

We will focus centrally on strengths-based and Asset Based Community Development [ABCD], following Cormac Russell’s work to support understanding of ways to resist dominant and neoliberal shapes for practice. We will use practical methods, including Ketso and The World Café as examples of resources for community consultation, project development and research.

Explorations in Youth Work and Community Development Management

You will develop your knowledge and understanding of youth work and community development management, considering the ways work is governed, funded, planned, delivered and evaluated. You will focus on the role of the youth and community work manager in managing staff, resources, projects, funding and health and safety aspects of our professional work.

Research Methods

During the second year, you will begin to learn about research methods in preparation for their dissertation project in their final year. You will explore the fundamentals of research methods and focus on participatory and creative methods of research that connect with Professional Practice.

Contemporary Studies and Social Justice

Building on work in year one you will develop your knowledge and understanding further of mental health issues and support for young people, the impact of social media on young peoples’ lives and criminal and / or sexual exploitation.

You will also develop your understanding of young people’s drug and alcohol use, climate change and domestic violence as dominant contemporary themes within the context of professional practice with young people and families.

Professional Practice

Through the professional Practice course, teaching is focused toward the practical elements of asset and relationship-based practice, working in partnership with young people and wider communities to design, deliver and evaluate learning experiences connecting with the NYA Youth Work Curriculum and National Occupational Standards for Youth Work and Community Development.

You will continue to explore your professional values in practice, build on your abilities to be reflective practitioners and develop particular practical knowledge and skills of community profiling, engagement, consultation, collaboration and project design and development in preparation for the second Practice Placement experience.

Advanced Studies in Youth Work and Community Development

Advanced Studies in Youth Work

You will develop your knowledge of the wider, contemporary social, political and economic factors that impact on youth work, including issues of neoliberalism and managerialism. You will consider the landscape of professional practice and the balance between different models of delivery for youth work.

Advanced Studies in Community Development

You will explore contemporary versions of community development, including a reinvigoration of the settlement movement and asset-based models to highlight appropriate mechanisms to promote social justice.

Advanced Studies in Managing Youth and Community Development

You will focus on the management of contemporary organisations, exploring the required skills, knowledge and understanding to focus on the successful management of community organisations, including governance and professional supervision of other staff.

You will also focus on alternative ways to measure and demonstrate impact of youth work, including through Story Telling and Most Significant Change Mechanisms to reclaim areas of practice.

Advanced Research Courses [ARCs]

You are able choose from the ARCs on offer across the School of Social Science. You are able to connect with a diversity of topic areas from academic colleagues in all social science subjects. This gives you opportunities to focus on particular areas of interest or to investigate areas relevant for you future career development.

Research Methods

Research methods teaching in the third year is focused on preparing you for your final dissertation projects. You will study the different types of methods of researching. We will focus on creative and participatory methodologies as these are particularly engaging for children and young people and can support the development of innovative research projects.

Dissertation

You will work with your designated dissertation supervisor to complete your final dissertation project. This can include researching with people or desk-based studies in topic areas of your choice.