Curriculum Information

The module content meets the module and wider course aims, which seek to develop critically reflective, youth work practitioners, who are innovative, enterprising, digitally literate, commercially aware, and can develop the leadership skills required to deliver effective youth & community work within a multi-agency and inter-professional context (USW, 2030 Strategy).

Utilising existing skills, knowledge, and competencies, students will embark on a journey of independent study, that will challenge them (e.g., Vygotsky, ‘zone of proximal development’ via scaffolding of learning) to further develop their skills, related to influencing youth and community work practice.

Students will continue to critically reflect on their own professional values and understanding of the ‘circles’ in which they operate (QAA, 2019), and further develop reflexivity, alongside a ‘structural’ awareness of (Thompson, 2019), and the contexts in which, they have an ‘influence’ as part of their work with young people, and beyond.

Indicative Module Content:

Youth and community work ‘discourse’, including consultation, participation, inclusion, rights-based approaches, and anti-oppressive practice.

Consideration of, and reflection on, student-practitioner role, and this influence on children, young people, communities, and associated professionals (multi-agency / interprofessional) context (e.g. ‘circles of influence’).

Reflexivity in a youth and community work context.

Advancement in consultation knowledge and skill.

Implementation of the AsPIRE model (Woods, et al, 2014) from identification of need, through to evaluation.

Ethically informed project planning.

Identification of ‘project need’, consideration of potential stakeholders, and permission for organisational gatekeepers.

Critical reflection on the benefits and challenges of including and involving children, young people, communities, and associated professionals in a ‘project’.

Planning techniques, and establishment of appropriate methods of intervention.

Application, review, and evaluation of intervention.

Validation of project findings utilising evidence from primary and secondary sources.

Project report development, writing, and production, in line with AsPIRE (Woods, et al, 2014).

Presentation of project findings, including evidence-informed, critically evaluated, recommendations for practice.

Reference and indication to dissemination activity, considering an audience of children, young people, communities, and associated professionals (multi-agency / interprofessional) context.