Youth Work & Community Practice Foundation Year

Program Overview

This professionally validated Youth Work & Community Practice degree provides a comprehensive foundation for those aspiring to become qualified, experienced, and employable professionals in the field. Through a unique block learning approach and extensive placement opportunities, students delve into core modules while exploring specialized topics like youth mental health and sports development. The program culminates in a dissertation project, ensuring graduates are well-versed in contemporary issues and anti-oppressive practices, preparing them for a wide range of careers in youth work and community-based organizations.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

This Youth Work & Community Practice degree is a professionally validated foundation entry course to help you become a qualified, experienced, and employable youth and community worker. The course is a new, exciting, innovative development taught via block learning, with placement opportunities available throughout the course. The course is delivered via block learning, making it flexible and achievable for someone working in the field. You will have the opportunity to study modules relating to young people in sport, or young people’s mental health, in addition to core modules in youth work and community practice making it a relevant and modern course. The course has been developed closely with the team from CVCL, offering placements and opportunities in over 300 voluntary sector organisations and benefiting from the expertise of a team that has working with the voluntary sector for over twenty years. In addition to the JNC Professional Qualification, you can gain a range of other awards through the course. These may include the following – First aid at work, Writing risk assessments, Safeguarding, Sports coaching qualifications, Mentoring, Counselling skills. The course is also directly linked to the Journal of Community Research, you will have the opportunity to submit a research paper to this peer reviewed journal.

Outline:

Year 0

• Essential Study Skills for Higher Education: This module provides you with a foundation in study skills by guiding you through the skills required to produce high quality academic work.
Topics covered in the module include academic writing, referencing and critical analysis. A range of world issues and current affairs within broadly defined areas such as, political systems, environmentalism, law and justice, and culture and society, will be explored. You'll have opportunities to focus on a topic within your intended honours degree (target award) Course. You will learn appropriate digital research skills, learn which digital tools and methods are suitable for your target award, and develop independent learning skills.
• Learning by Experience: In this module you will explore group working, negotiating and task-based learning while building a reflective learning portfolio.
You will choose a project to research, present your findings and exhibit your work as well as reflecting on your learning. Health and safety in the workplace, child protection, the ethics of volunteering, disability awareness first aid training, race, ethnicity, and discrimination, dealing with difficult situations effectively.
• Volunteering and Community Action: This module will provide you with the practical experience of volunteering.
This includes planning and arranging your placement as well as considering the ethics of volunteering. You will be expected to reflect on your practical volunteering experience.

Year 1

• Placement Year 1 - Youth Work: You will complete a minimum of 200 hours placement, working as a youth worker.
You will be supervised to work with young people both one-to-one and in groups and support them to engage in activities.
• Policy, Practice and Legislation: This module is designed to help prepare you for professional practice, with a focus on health and safety, child protection and equality and diversity.
• Communication in Practice: This module introduces you to issues surrounding communication in youth work, education and care contexts and the importance of effective communication in ensuring good practice and outcomes for young people.
• Youth Dialogue: You will be introduced to the dialogue used by, about and with young people.
It considers theory and research about young people, their relationships with each other, others, and between young people and society.
• Exploring Modern Youth Work: This module considers how current youth work has evolved and changed and how youth work interacts with other agencies and organisations.
You will also access training and accreditations relating to current roles in youth work from external agencies and other departments within the University.

Year 2

• Placement Year 2 - Youth Work: In this second placement module, you will complete a minimum of 300 hours working as a professional youth worker.
Exhibiting clear anti-oppressive practice, you will work with young people to plan activities and examine rights and responsibilities through informal education. Political, educational, and social issues are examined with a view to develop a better understanding of the world for young people.
• Psychology of Youth & Community: This module aims to give you a psychological perspective on youth and community.
It examines different psychological models and theories of behaviour for events that occur in the community. It also develops your knowledge of the psychological development of individuals and groups and its practical implications when engaging in work with young people and communities.
• Youth Development (Optional): This module uses the award winning, international Global Youth Solutions project to give you a practical experience in planning, delivery and evaluation of a peer leadership skills through a peer education project.
• School and Community Sports Development (Optional): This sports development module gives you the opportunity to examine the logistics and impact of sports projects in schools and communities and the theory behind why sport is used as a tool to work with young people and communities.

Year 3

• Placement Year 3 - Youth Work: In this final compulsory placement module, you will complete a minimum of 300 hours placement working as a professional youth worker, supervising other youth workers, allocating resources, evaluating work and demonstrating anti-oppressive practice.
It will involve a particular issue of relevance to children and young people’s lives and services. You will be guided and supported by your dissertation supervisor to plan, carry out the project and write it up as an academic research.
• Management in Youth Work and Community Practice: The module aims to prepare you for some of the situations you may experience when working in management in youth work and community practice.
You will consider theories of management, how to put them into practice, the challenges to management in a youth work setting and the importance of supervision and staff development.
• Equality, Diversity and Anti-Oppressive Practice: This module joins all previous academic learning and explores theory around anti-oppressive practice.
It aims to continue to build your understanding of common themes of prejudice, equality, diversity and oppression, particularly around gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality, class and disability.

Assessment:

The learning environment will be very practical, with assessments created to be as practical and useful as possible, students will undertake placements in Youth Work or Community Practice throughout their course and will be expected to complete assessments which will affect policy and practice in those organisations.

Teaching:

You’ll be taught by an experienced course team that have come from Youth Work or Community Practice backgrounds and have experience in youth work, youth justice, child sexual exploitation, international community work, leadership, action research, mentoring, homelessness, environmentalism, mental health and sports development. You’ll be taught in a learning environment that will be very practical, with assessments created to be as practical and useful as possible. You will undertake placements in Youth Work or Community Practice throughout the course and will be expected to complete assessments which will affect policy and practice in those organisations. In addition to your degree, you will also receive a CPD award in safeguarding, a CPD award in writing risk assessments, a first aid at work qualification and will have the opportunity to complete an ILM in Mentoring, which will ensure you leave university as a highly employable graduate ready for a career in youth work.

Careers:

After completing this course, students will be able to move directly into a wide range of careers including, but not limited to, youth work, teaching assistant, teaching (with the addition of a PGCE), community activism, local charity work, housing association work, working with young offenders, social care, social work (with additional qualifications), sports coaching, sports development, learning support and community policing. Students will be supported throughout their programme of study by the University of Central Lancashire careers service but especially in their final year where they will be offered more intensive one-to-one appointments to consider their future.

Other:

The course is linked to over three hundred community partners across the country meaning you will have the opportunity to complete placements in areas that are exciting and interesting. The course leader is engaged in innovative research with young people and is a member of the Centre for Young People’s Participation at UCLan. The course team are all members of The Professional Association of Lecturers in Youth and Community Work and active members of The National Council of Voluntary Organisations, our links are current and wide ranging and mean you will be being taught by tutors with access to the latest in policy developments and research. The programme will give you a wealth of experience and knowledge, leaving you prepared for employment on graduation.

2024/25

UK

First year: £9,250 for the first year Full-time: £9,250 per year

International

First year: £16,400 for the first year Full-time: £16,500 per year