Virtual Placement 1 – Working With Children, Young People And Families

This work experience opportunity will enable students to demonstrate through direct practice, simulated practice, virtual placements, assessed work and reflective learning logs their understanding and ability to apply theory to practice in various contexts. You will draw work-based or work-related  experience to evidence your skills in undertaking a role relevant to competencies and key skills related to your HTQ pathway

Effective, Ethical And Inclusive Practice Skills In Supporting Children, Young People And Families

What skills, knowledge and values underpin the ways in which front line practitioners engage children, young people and their families using their services? 

This unit will enable you to develop the skills and knowledge that form the basis of relationship-building with service users across children’s social care, youth work, health, criminal justice and educational settings. You will explore the range of theories, models and methods of intervention that underpin the development of effective relationships when supporting children, young people and their families. It will enable you to identify, analyse and apply the skills required to build rapport with children, young people and families to improve and sustain outcomes and should be considered as an important starting point to your study of working with children and young people.

The key themes which this unit will focus on are how do professionals recognise human need and how should they respond to meeting identified needs including the recognition of how inequalities impact the way service users engage with support.

The models and underpinning theories will be practiced in the classroom to prepare you for the realities of practice.

Understanding And Applying Key Foundational Knowledge, Legislative, Policy And Practice Frameworks

What does it mean to be a ‘professional’ in careers that support the needs of children, families and young people? 

What does it mean to behave ‘professionally’ within the degree-related sector that you will enter and what are the essential interpersonal skills required in the workplace, including how you relate to clients, colleagues and managers, regulators etc. and how these are informed by ethical practices and the principles of social justice in order to create change and address inequality.

This unit is designed to explore the frameworks that define professional practice for those working in the sector as well as key foundational knowledge required for practice. It will examine children and young people’s lives through historical, sociological and philosophical perspectives and will also draw on different theoretical perspectives of child and adolescent development and explore how social, economic, technological and cultural change, alongside difference, diversity and inclusion shape various narratives around contemporary childhood, adolescence and family life. Content will also include professional values, behaviours, ethics as well as the requirements of legislation and application of codes of practice, e.g. safeguarding, confidentiality, health and safety, HCPC, OfSTED etc. 

The unit is relevant to students who intend to work with children, young people and families, both in formal and informal settings. It provides a broad understanding of the theories underpinning the studies of childhood, youth and families that is relevant to professional practice across family, health, social care, criminal justice, education and community settings. You will gain a clear understanding of what being professional means in this context.

Introduction To Academic Study And The Workplace

This is the first unit on your course and designed to support your transition into a higher education environment by giving you the foundational knowledge and skills you’ll need to help you succeed as you progress further in your degree. It will enable you to develop your understanding of the skills and conventions of academic study in higher education and the important professional frameworks within your particular discipline. It will help you recognise the transferability and relevance of this knowledge for, your work with service users and professional colleagues in the workplace.

You will learn constructive oral and written communication and the effective and ethical management and presentation of knowledge and information that are essential for both academic work and your future professional practice. You will be encouraged to identify your own academic strengths, areas for development, and strategies to support your academic and professional growth through personal development planning.  If you are already in work, you’ll be able to identify your transferable skills and how these can meet the unit’s requirements. 

By the end of the unit you will have increased your academic confidence and digital literacy by gaining an understanding of key academic skills such as assessment planning, how to effectively use BREO, searching for and sourcing academic material, academic integrity and how to construct essays, presentations and the consideration of their application in both academic work and professional contexts.

Skills For Employment

This unit builds on the work undertaken on L4 on work-based skills and the virtual placement. The graduate job market is a highly competitive arena. As such within a student’s career journey, it is essential to prepare for graduate employment and to have a realistic awareness of, the ways in which the professional work place operates and the skills, knowledge and experiences that are expected and desirable for their successful transition into employment

This unit will allow you to undertake activities that allow for the understanding of personal values, strengths, and developing a realistic vocational or employment self-concept. This unit will introduce these frameworks and enable you to consider your career planning in an informative and structured approach as you continue through your studies by recognising and most importantly, valuing, your lived experience. 

The teaching will provide career development  interventions to assist students’ ability to identify their transferrable skills and articulate their experience, skills and attributes in a confident, meaningful and positive manner in order to successfully secure their desired career destination.

Virtual Placement 2 Managing Services For Children, Young People And Families

This Work Experience Unit in your final year of study will enable you to demonstrate, through direct practice, simulations and virtual placements assessed work your understanding and ability to apply and evaluate the occupational standards of a manager in your professional environment. In order to meet the requirements of this unit, you will be expected to synthesise, apply and evaluate your understanding of current theory, methodologies, research, policy and legislative frameworks building on learning from the first year of the course.

Conducting Assessments, Delivering Interventions And Evaluating Outcomes In Practice

Building on learning from the first year of the course, this unit fosters students’ critical appreciation of the legislative, policy and operational environment of the range of services relating to assessment in child welfare and youth justice, in order to develop their professional employability. 

 You will examine in depth some of the overarching issues for children, young people and families in need of intervention, safeguarding or to support and supervise sanctions and penalties. You will also have the opportunity to explore and understand the issues that trigger statutory duties to safeguard children and the wider social political / social policy contexts in which they occur by considering consequent interventions in line with professional values, including the child’s voice, anti-discriminatory practice.  It will locate these issues within their wider social, political, legislative and practice contexts of child welfare and youth justice and explore the essential skills and knowledge underpinning practice, for example, evidence-based approaches to assessment, affording you the opportunity to examine these alongside current research evidence, expert opinion and practice initiatives.

As part of this unit, students will attend skills workshops that will offer the Certificate in Working Together to Safeguard Children and Young People, accredited by LCSB’s in Bedford, Luton and Central Bedfordshire

Designing Resourcing And Delivering Quality Services To Children, Young People And Their Families

This unit will focus on the vocational context and make clear links with underpinning theoretical knowledge, legislative and policy frameworks for the delivery of good quality services. Reflective practice should be at the core of the work of a manager in children, young people or family settings. Reflecting on, investigating and analysing techniques and processes of leadership and management within professional contexts, will enable you to further develop your skills as a manager, your position and the exercise of authority in this role. This unit will allow you to reflect on your personal and professional values when dealing with issues in the workplace and how your practice could be developed to improve services for your client group, ensuring the necessary professional behaviours and quality guidance are in place.   You will be expected to apply these in the virtual placement unit.