September 2024

Working With Children, Young People and Families Top-Up Degree BA (Hons)

Top-up Degree, September 2024

Key Details

  • L591 Course Code
  • 1-2 Years
Students smiling in discussion

In the current economic climate, there are many challenges facing children, young people and families. Supporting children, young people and families requires informed and educated professionals who are able to understand the social, economic, educational, political and cultural issues and barriers in order to respond to, and challenge the issues facing families and communities today.

This top up course will enable you to build on the learning from your foundation degree or HND (or equivalent) in order to complete a full BA (Hons) degree which will enable you to build a career within the field of working with children, young people and families.

  • The course provides an opportunity to cover a range of multi-disciplinary issues
  • You will be encouraged to develop an area of particular expertise, in line with your own interests and career aspirations.
  • The course is up to date, keeping pace with changes in society.
  • You have options within the capstone project, so that you can undertake a traditional research project (dissertation) if you wish, or alternatively or could complete a work-based learning research project, or undertake a more creative, taught capstone. This is tailored to offer you more choice and to meet your needs as a future practitioner.

During this top-up programme, the course looks at a number of social issues, policy and legislation relevant to children, young people and families.  Throughout this course you will carry out an independent capstone project, on a topic of interest to you. You will also undertake a mandatory safeguarding children module, alongside further option modules to tailor the final year around your own career pathway.

The programme uses a variety of assessment methods including elements real world tasks which will be useful for graduate level employment.

The skills and knowledge gained from undertaking this course provide an excellent preparation for a wide range of occupations including careers in pastoral roles in education, family support work, social care, community support roles, employment within local authorities, health or charity sectors, culture, heritage or recreation.

It is intended that graduates from this course will develop into managers and leadership roles capable of dealing with multi-agency working with a range of knowledge and inter-personal skills.

Graduates can also progress onto a wide range of postgraduate degree programmes including social work, or teacher training or Psychology conversion.

Newman University is located in Britain’s second city – Birmingham. With one of the youngest city populations in Europe, it is a vibrant and dynamic place to study.

Studying at Newman University, you have the advantage of being near to the city, but living in, or commuting to peaceful and comfortable surroundings on campus.

Dining out

Birmingham has lots of wonderful places to dine out with a range of different cuisines. Places where you can dine out include; Brindley Place, Mailbox and Hagley Road (just 10 minutes’ from Newman).

Entertainment

Whether you like to go to; the theatre, gigs or clubs, or enjoy: sports, shopping visiting art galleries or exhibitions – Birmingham will not disappoint and you will be spoilt for choice!

Location

Getting around Birmingham is easy via train, bus or by car. Birmingham has excellent transport links to the rest of Britain, making it easy for those weekend getaways!

Why not explore the city for yourself by visiting one of our Open Days?

Want to find out more about Birmingham? Then take a look at some Birmingham City Secrets.

Ask Us a Question

Entry Requirements

All applicants will need to have 120 credits at level 4 and 120 credits at level 5 in a relevant Foundation Degree or HND. Contact admissions for the suitability of your qualification(s).

International Students
Newman University is not licenced by the UK Government to sponsor migrant students under the Student route and is therefore unable to accept applications from international students at present.

Applying Direct Option

You can apply direct to Newman University for the full-time route for this course if you have not previously applied to Newman University through UCAS and you are not applying to any other universities.

September 2024 Direct Application Link

September 2024 Direct Application Link (part-time)

N.B. will need to enter ‘New User’ account details when first accessing this portal.

Course Fees

The full-time course fee for September 2023 is £9,250 per year.

The University will review tuition fees and increase fees in line with any inflationary uplift as determined by the UK Government, if permitted by law or government policy, in subsequent years of your course. It is anticipated that such increases would be linked to RPI (the Retail Price Index excluding mortgage interest payments).

Additional Costs

Find out more about the other additional costs associated with our undergraduate degrees. 

Modules

Please be aware that, as with any course, there may be changes to the modules delivered, for information view our Changes to Programmes or Module Changes page.

Timetables: find out when information is available to students

As a part-time undergraduate student, you choose how many modules to study each year (up to a maximum of 6). To qualify for a student tuition fee loan you will need to choose at least 4 modules. A normal 3-year degree will take 4.5 years to complete if you take 6 modules per year. You will be taught alongside full-time undergraduate students.

The modules displayed are for the full-time route, for part-time modules will be split across the duration of the course.

  1. This module provides students with the opportunity to explore an area of particular interest through undertaking an evaluation of a particular policy or practice areas related to ‘professional practice’ Related to working with children, young people or families
  2. This module provides students with the opportunity to explore an area of particular interest through undertaking a small scale research project supported by a member of staff from the subject area (or elsewhere) with appropriate specialist knowledge.
  3. This module offers you the opportunity to build on your level 5 work placement through the more developed application of a negotiated work-based research project. You will agree with your placement tutor and workplace mentor a brief for a project which addresses a need within the organisation. Learners should complete a minimum of 100 hours in the workplace. It is in the spirit of this module that wherever possible, the focus will be on social or community / sustainable development.
  4. This module will provide students with the opportunity to explore historical and contemporary concerns that have served to shape policy and practice. Students will explore current legislation and its implications for practice for all those working with the young and vulnerable adults. A clearer understanding will be gained of the different roles and responsibilities of those working in the area of safeguarding. Consideration will be given to the impact that abuse can have on the lives of victims and their families.
  5. Given the changing nature of children’s services in line with a neoliberalist agenda, understanding both how organisations and communities function and the roles that individuals play within each of those is important. Therefore students need to understand both the role of values at an institutional level, and how partnership working is developed and sustained across organisations and communities.
  6. This module will explore the role of creativity and play in how children and adults make sense of their lives and worlds, and the role of practitioners in facilitating this process. Working with children, young people and families is a holistic and participatory discipline. Good practice should seek to develop a social pedagogy which treats children’s, young people’s and families’ cultures as inherently valuable, and practitioners should support, in a person-centred way, those they work with to optimise their dignity, choice and wellbeing in their own lives. Creativity is foundational in this process.   The module will seek to give students a broad foundation in the theory and practice of creative working current in the field. Drawing on concrete examples of children and young people’s cultures and making use of arts, crafts, life skills, sports, games, religion and the natural world, it will help students to build their confidence in this mode of working. The key threshold concept will be an awareness of the tension between valuing children’s’ activities as developmental or therapeutic and valuing them for their own sake. It will encourage students to hold this tension through a reflective remembering of their own childhood lifeworld.
  7. This module will provide students with the opportunity to explore current legislation and its implications for practice for all those working with children, young people and adults with care experience.  The module will seek to examine the rhetoric within policy and initiatives concerning children who are in Care and the underlying political ideologies around the role of the state in caring for children.  Students will investigate the range of provision for people with care experience including models popular in other countries.  A wide view of the diverse needs of children, young people and adults with care experience will be presented, underlining the challenges in balancing protection and support with learning and development and the associated importance of partnership and collaborative working.
  8. This module explores some practical challenges of working with families where there are concerns around violence, harm and/or abuse.  It seeks to explore different ways of thinking about vulnerability and risk and how this relates to the ways in which families are constructed in policy and practice. It also seeks to look at key practice issues around working with family members and other professionals.
  9. At levels 4 and 5 students will have been introduced to notions of inclusive practice, the effects of discrimination and the need for practitioners to understand what lies behind the concept of social justice when it comes to working with children, young people and families. This module offers students at level 6 the chance to develop their thinking about how they can best work with children and families to alleviate or overcome barriers to equality and justice in service design and delivery. The context for this will be an exploration of the concept of ‘anti-oppressive’ practice and will include an examination of the skills needed to work in this way.