BA (Hons) Social and Community Work

This module aims to provide a critical introduction to community development and youth work by exploring underlying values, defining ideas and contested purposes. It is intended to help you explore the relationship between theory, policy and practice in community development and youth work, in historical and contemporary context.

The module will consider the necessary professional skills, knowledge and competencies. It will draw on your own experience in considering the development of professional values, especially in understanding how inequalities can be addressed through practice.

This module will provide an introduction to the value of group work in effecting change in attitudes, beliefs and practice. It’ll enable you to articulate social and political understandings of the impact of group work. We’ll introduce experiential group work alongside other significant models and theories.

You’ll be encouraged to develop your ability to synthesise theoretical understandings, enhance your group work skills and abilities, and assess how these might be applied within the group and in wider professional and social contexts. This is a highly interactive module in which you’ll be expected to develop personal and professional insight through engagement in group work practice and group work facilitation.

This module will introduce students to the principles, traditions and approaches of social research. The content will provide grounding in research methodology through an examination of investigative techniques applicable to the collection of data in diverse community development and youth work settings. It will introduce students to action research. It will enable students to explore the theoretical influences, and identify practical strengths and weaknesses, of established research approaches. This module will introduce students to co-production and the importance of involving local people and communities as active leaders in participatory research.

This module provides a broad critical introduction to social science understandings that are relevant to work with young people and communities. It will introduce key analytical frameworks for understanding social problems in the UK.

We’ll explore the dynamic relationship between individual agency and social structure as it is reflected in a range of contemporary policy issues. The module will focus on the distinctions and connections between democratic and political structures and processes.

This module aims to clarify definitions and understandings of racism and explore its manifestations. We’ll argue that racism affects the whole community, and that institutional racism is embedded within UK organisations.

You’ll focus on professional and managerial practices that sustain institutional racism and examine interventions that can challenge and change equality of outcomes in services. The module will equip you to identify, engage and create change in professional and organisational practice.

This module will offer a broad overview of criminological theories, law and legal processes relating to crime and criminality. You’ll be encouraged to develop a critical lens to analyse the ‘law and order’ discourse that dominates the UK criminal justice system. You’ll also develop an insight into the role of advocacy in maintaining people’s human rights.

Alternative approaches to custodial and punitive responses such as diversionary and community-based orders will be explored and analysed as to their comparative efficacy. We’ll examine disproportionality in the criminal justice system, particularly in relation to race. You’ll critically consider the individual and social factors that contribute to why people commit crime, including inequality, poverty, education, and discrimination.

The module will challenge dominant assumptions about the causes and key responses to crime, within the context of political and social policy agendas. The role of media in defining and contributing to discourses about crime will also be considered. Key examples of contemporary moral panics such as knife crime will be explored. We’ll take a critical approach to understanding that definitions of crime and criminality are contextual, and consider what should and should not be considered as deviant.

This module will provide a basic introduction to social work with children and families. The module will explore policy, practice and prevalent theory that is relevant to social work, drawing on psychological and sociological paradigms, such as child development theories (psychology) and C Wright Mills’ sociological imagination.

It will offer an overview of the historical, organisational, and legislative context of social work in the UK – and explore the political and ideological values that underpin different approaches to practice. You’ll gain an understanding of both dominant approaches in social work and more marginal and radical perspectives.

You’ll be encouraged to critically analyse current interventions, particularly around race equality. Social issues such as poverty, environment, discrimination, and education will be explored as key social factors affecting children and families. Equality issues such as race, gender, disability, and class will also be considered.

This module, subtitled ‘Researching Our World & Lives’, builds on the conceptual and contextual foundations of Identity, Agency and Environment 1.

You will learn how to conduct academic research and will be offered the opportunity to broaden and deepen your understanding of the relationship between your own interests, skills, values, career and non-career aspirations, the concepts, theories and contexts of your discipline, and the world.

You will reflect upon your identities as researchers, and learn how the research skills you’ve acquired both within your studies and the world more generally can be related to problem-solving in a wide range of contexts. You will consider your agency as researchers, what you can and cannot research, the ethical issues involved, and think reflexively about your position as a researcher in a range of environments and eco-systems.

Formal conventions of academic research and writing will be integrated into your individualised contexts and goals, enabling the expression of ideas and perspectives that may challenge the status quo. The module will encourage creativity, activism, decision-making and the formation of judgements leading to action-planning in relation to research topics and types of evidence, and professional planning.

You will learn to critique your own subject disciplines. Interdisciplinary sharing of knowledge will ensure that assessment and learning practices provide you with the opportunity to develop new lines of thinking and knowing, within formative collaborative learning and research communities.

This module explores the challenges and contradictions of practice in the contemporary context, taking into account the changing context of political relations in society, particularly the nature of the state.

The key aim of this module is to enable students to analyse the relationship between theoretical frameworks, contemporary policy imperatives and developments in youth work practice.

This module aims to examine a range of theoretical contributions to group work. It will draw on group work literature and research on large groups, including group analysis, critical reflection models and group work for social justice, action and change. It will include perspectives drawn from social psychology, learning theory, systems theory, sociology and humanistic psychology.

We’ll seek to connect the micro dynamics of group work to macro relations of power: exploring the emergence of sub groupings, negotiating conflict and difference, and assessing the potential of facilitated and self-directed group work to enable change.

The module will focus particularly on identity, power, conflict and leadership and assess the value of theoretical understandings in informing effective experiential group work.

This module is designed to develop your understanding and ability to work effectively in groups, with each other and in practice situations. We’ll analyse sources and responses in situations of difference and conflict and explore the possibilities for change. The specific content will take account of the diverse experience of the participants, drawing upon appropriate models, theories and approaches.

We’ll seek to foreground the wider social context and its impact on the relationship between identity, culture and power, and how these impact on group dynamics. This practice-based experiential module will provide you with a range of approaches and understandings that can be applied across diverse contexts. You’ll be expected to participate in leading some sessions.

This module is intended to develop your ideological awareness, analytical skills and critical capacity to make cogent political arguments in your work. An understanding of the dynamic relationship between theory, policy and politics is central to a critical analysis of engagement with individuals and communities. This principle will be the focus of this module.

Policies must be understood as ideologically informed ways of seeing the world rather than as neutral and disinterested constructions of social problems. The module explores both established ideological frameworks and developed critiques. In general terms, policy always needs to be interpreted and we’ll consider how scope for professional agency can be created.

This module will focus on demystifying common assumptions about mental health. It will examine psychosocial models of mental health and explore the connections between the individual, families, and society. We’ll consider the biopsychosocial model alongside other psychosocial approaches. We’ll explore the impact of trauma on individuals that stems from childhood and family experiences, as well as broader structural causes such as poverty and racism.

The Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on society over time will serve as a case study for this. We’ll critically reflect on societal responses to mental health and trauma. The module will explore interventions that focus on trauma-informed practice as an alternative to only addressing mental health problems through medication and/or therapeutic approaches focused on addressing symptoms rather than causes.

We’ll consider how a range of professionals might engage in trauma-informed practice in their work with communities.

This module will build on the principles, traditions and approaches of social research, and their application to community development as well as youth work practice introduced in the first year of your degree.

We’ll use the concept of research as a contested practice to interrogate the strengths and weaknesses of established research approaches. There will be a strong focus on critically evaluating the use of a range of data sources, policy documents and published academic research in your own areas of interest and practice.

This module aims to enhance your personal and/or professional development. Based around theories of reflective practice, we’ll use an experiential learning approach to plan and undertake a project that facilitates your personal or professional development, recognising the relationship between these. For example, you might undertake a work experience project, undertake a study of your family history or investigation into your childhood influences. You can also come up with something completely innovative that supports personal or professional reflection.

Whilst the module focuses primarily on independent study, you’ll be supported to identify and plan a project, undertake the project, and reflect on its implications for your learning. You might draw on models and theories from across the programme to inform the reflection, facilitated by tutors. You’ll be encouraged to reflect on how your learning from your individual project can be harnessed as strengths for your future professional journey as well as how areas for development might be addressed.

You’ll be encouraged to recognise structural barriers that can inhibit progress towards individual goals such as racism, sexism, and other discrimination – as well as examining how to overcome letting these be personal blocks to action.

This module aims to provide a theoretical and practical introduction to using the arts to explore issues of interest, need and concern as well as assets and potential in community settings. The arts play a significant role in many people’s lives, both formally and informally, and the module seeks to provide practical, creative and effective tools for working through art forms to engage with communities and individuals. The module will be interactive and taught through a mixture of lectures and workshops.

You’ll learn how to conceive, plan and deliver effective arts work responding to the needs, abilities and aspirations of potential client groups. We’ll consider arts in universal and asset-focused work as well as that targeted at those with specific needs or living in challenging circumstances including contexts like singing with people with Alzheimer’s, Visual Arts with people with Learning Difficulties, street dance or lyric writing with "at risk" young people. We’ll also recognise the tension in values between asset-focused and risk-focused work.

You’ll develop your own creative, communication and facilitation skills through taking part in arts-based workshops. The module will give you the chance to experience and develop a variety of workshop-based engagement techniques in different art forms.

This module will introduce you to youth work and community development policies and practice Pan Europe, as well in the Global South. It will also offer you an opportunity for a practical comparative exchange with a group of youth and community workers based in another European country.

As the provision of statutory youth work and other community services have declined in the UK, the past two decades have seen a significant increase in the development and delivery of youth and community services globally. This development is in some cases a direct response to an anticipated increase of young people under 30 years of more than 50% of overall populations. Therefore, the government and non-profit sector led interventions aim to be more responsive to their social, educational, economic and civic participation and engagement needs.

The module will consider ideology and theories of post war international development up to the present day examining the relationship of the state, the market and civil society.

This module will explore theories, policies and practices of Youth Justice in the UK. We’ll consider the dominant discourses of youth crime prevention and connect these to policy and media discourses, as well as outlining alternative visions and models for practice.

The module will have a particular focus on recognising and challenging discrimination and stereotyping in youth justice practice and connecting this with wider structural inequalities.

This is an interdisciplinary module which explores the links between religion, belief, and spirituality and professional practice. Western societies are increasingly religiously diverse, and law and guidance require engagement with the religion and belief identities of service users. Yet public discourse and professional training has been dominated by post-religious assumptions which impede a good quality of conversation and debate. Instead, discourse has revolved around risks, controversies and crises poses by religion and belief, usually associated with sex, gender, money and violence.

This module explores these discourses as starting points for practice with religiously diverse publics. It considers points of connection and disconnection between them, and practice settings providing services in physical and mental health, social work and social care, and community and youth work settings. The module will introduce multi-professional perspectives, while also allowing you to delve deeper into your own professional frameworks and paradigms in profession-specific seminars.

Our academic departments are developing exciting elective ideas to allow you to broaden your education, either to develop vocationally orientated experiences or to learn more about contemporary society, culture and politics. You’ll be able to choose safe in the knowledge that these modules have been designed for non-subject specialists and to bring students from different disciplines together. For example, you may want to take introductions to areas such as Law, Education, the digital industries, the creative industries,think like a designer or understand the history and politics behind our current affairs.

Community development and youth work have significant and distinct histories in addressing issues of social justice. In this module, we’ll explore these histories as well as how issues of social justice are addressed in contemporary practice. The role of movements in resistance, struggle, protest and change will be a key focus and there will be an emphasis on radical forms of youth and community practice.

The module will feature examples of how youth work and community development practice have engaged with equalities and social justice movements, issues and debates.

In this module, you’ll be introduced to the evolution of leadership and management theories and be encouraged to critically to assess how you might contribute to the effective operation and leadership of organisations. You’ll be examined in the context of the changing nature of organisational structures, approaches to the design and delivery of youth and community development services and employment practices.

The module offers an analysis of some of the key differences between leadership and management roles functions and styles. We’ll introduce you to a range of theories, models and practices, and explore their relevance within the community development and youth work settings.

We’ll emphasise on applying theory to practical skills and knowledge, and how they can be used in a range of management and leadership situations and tasks. The module sets these skills in the context of critiques of greater flexibility in working practices, including workplace insecurity and the so-called working ‘precariat’, shifts in cultures and practices of deference, transparency and accountability, including changes in relationships between providers and users of services.

This module will explore the emergence of social policy as a discipline in the context of the rise of state critiques and welfare responses. We’ll explore the discipline’s roots in critiques of social justice and equality, and the distribution and redistribution of power and wealth. We’ll consider evolving phases and preoccupations of social policy, all the way from the Elizabethan and Victorian Poor Laws into the contemporary emphases on market, austerity, philanthropy and self-help.

The module aims to provide a creative and critical engagement with the social, economic, cultural and political forces influencing contemporary social policy as the context in which community development and youth work practice takes place. You’ll explore a range of historical and contemporary themes and concepts, including liberty, equality, needs, rights, justice, democracy and more.

The module will enable you to utilise abstract concepts and principles yourself and relate these to 'real life' contexts. We’ll analyse social policies using an intersectional approach.

The module will begin with lectures and workshop-based research methods and proposal development teaching leading to a dissertation proposal. Following this, you’ll be divided into small groups with one tutor per group based on the topic of your dissertation. You’ll engage in collective critical discussions of articles from refereed journals, intended to provide practice of critiquing and therefore understanding the elements of successful research.

The dissertation itself is characterised by independent study and should demonstrate in-depth critical analysis, professional relevance and knowledge of appropriate research and enquiry approaches. The thinking and theoretical analysis behind the study should be clear and it should be historically and contextually situated.

The study will enable you to integrate and express the learning gained from across your degree. The research can be entirely desk-based, or it can have a strong practical field research element. Your choice of topic should match the investigative approach adopted.

This module will give you analytical insight into causes and responses to homelessness and the endemic inequality within the housing sector. Its overall focus is on the role of inequalities in housing provision and precarity. The module will examine recent trends within public policy relating to homelessness and social housing support, the impacts on communities and specific vulnerable groups. It will provide you with an understanding of the agencies and advocates within the sector and their respective approaches.

Central to this module will be developing appreciation of the significance of marginalised voices. There will be a particular focus on the structural and intersectional causes of housing precarity and homelessness including poverty and institutional racism, among others. Therefore, the module will be underpinned primarily on sociological theories that recognise structural issues and inequalities – with some reference to more conservative theories and how they disregard these issues.

This compulsory module will involve spending 70 hours (10 days over one term) on a work placement. You’ll be asked to complete an assessment of what you hope to gain from the placement before being supported by the Careers office and programme tutors to search for placements. The placement could be in a range of organisations in the social, communities and charities sector. We’ll complete a CV check with the Careers service. Workshops to prepare for placement will be facilitated by programme staff with support from the Careers office. Placement organisations chosen by students will need to meet the Careers office’s compliance requirements.

You’ll agree on the aims and objectives with your placement supervisor and reflect on your own learning and development against these objectives. You’ll also critically reflect on your placement organisation’s purpose, methods and impact. You will be asked to prepare a short presentation on this to deliver to your tutors and peers. Students will be expected to identify how the placement fits into their career and/or further training objectives. Tutor support will be available throughout your time on placement.

If the organisation you're completing your placement with requires a DBS check, you may be required to cover these costs. If you’re facing financial hardship, you’ll be to apply for a bursary to cover it, however it is not guaranteed.

Faith-based youth work is a growing sector that has come to form the single largest part of the youth work field since the early 2000s. Youth work has its roots in faith-based and philanthropic movements. In this module, we’ll explore historical and contemporary faith-based youth work practice.

The established Christian, Jewish and Muslim youth work traditions will be considered as well as pockets of practice among faiths which are newer to Britain, such as Sikhism, Buddhism and inter-faith work. Issues and controversies in faith-based youth work will be explored, particularly those around inclusivity, and the relationship of faith-based youth work with civil society.

Whilst this module explores the distinct professional narrative of faith-based youth work, we’ll recognise the overlap with faith-based community work, particularly in the role of social action and volunteering in youth work.

In the UK and across Europe, there has been a preoccupation with austerity and widespread reductions in the provision of services. The response has seen a plethora of new and existing services being designed and delivered using entrepreneurial models and approaches including 'mutuals', social enterprises and private partnerships.

This module will introduce you to theories and practices, including examples, of entrepreneurial approaches in community and youth work settings. You’ll gain skills that enable you to identify and develop opportunities, solve issues and problems, meet need, and generate and communicate ideas to make a difference in communities. This module will also introduce you to the topic of how to start and grow your own community based social business.

This module is designed to offer greater insight into and understanding of the dilemmas and possibilities implied in conflict transformation and reconciliation. It will provide you with theoretical and practice-based approaches to addressing conflict in a variety of situations with both young people and adults.

It will develop your critical understanding of issues relevant to the field, including conflicts related to:

• race
• gender
• age
• disability
• religion or belief
• power
• culture
• ethics and professional practice

It will enable you to critically reflect on your learning and potential responses to conflict situations. The module will be responsive to the particular interests of the participants. You’ll be able to draw from your own experiences within the curriculum.