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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.