Working with Children, Young People and Families BA (Hons)

In just one more month, we will be welcoming our new students and welcoming back our continuing students. We always look forward to this and make sure we have planned a really well supported step on board (and steps back on board).

Our Welcome week begins w/c Monday 18th September, but for students new to us in year one (and students continuing to us from the integrated foundation year) there is also a welcome opportunity earlier than that at 3.30pm online on Tuesday 12th September on the following link: https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/66aaf28eecb54df5a17bd188400c88be 

(That’s an optional one in case you have any questions you’d like to explore a little earlier, or just if it would be reassuring to say hello and have a chat with Rachel before we all meet in person the week after!)

Every programme has a welcome pack on the University web site and they are well worth a look as all the starting information you need is in there.

You can find our pack ON THIS LINK.

This will tell you when and where our welcome sessions are for all students entering year one next month, September 2023.

We also host welcome back sessions for our students entering level 5/year 2 and level 6/year 3. This year, those are happening on Thursday 21st September (year 2 in the morning 10-12 and year 3 in the afternoon 1-3). This conveniently coincides with an invitation to the Dean’s lunch (12-2)  so we hope that many of our students will join us and each other and have a chat with the Deans over some UON-provided lunch that we hope will be delicious! (Those Dean’s lunches happen throughout the year and are a great opportunity not just to be fed but also to really be heard but our leadership team and help shape the university experience as you would like).

We are excited to see you all and be part of your journey!

(Decorative image of folded newspaper and laptop)

One of the questions we are often asked is about reading for the course – both from students progressing from one year to the next and from new incoming students. ‘What should we be reading to help us do well’? ‘Is there any required reading’? You may have seen the earlier post about this topic, so you will know that one of our favourite directions in which to point people asking this excellent question is to the news.

Sadly, there is often much in the news that is relevant to the issues facing children and young people. This morning, as I was going through my news feed, a couple in particular jumped out at me:

There is the story in The Independent about the significantly increased rate of emergency mental health referrals for young people: LINK

Then my attention was caught by a story from the BBC about young people with Autism and Learning Difficulties being locked in secure hospitals for decades. These are young people who have committed no crime who are locked away against their will (and that of their families) in some cases for 18 years. Here is the LINK to that story. One of the young people they mention is a woman called Beth, whose story I was already familiar with through her father’s Twitter account. It took him a long time of campaigning to get Beth out and their story has been featured before in other BBC documentaries that are worth exploring. If you use Twitter and would like to follow this account, the handle is @JeremyH09406697

It is well worth looking at news sources such as The Guardian Society to see what grabs your attention. Here is a LINK to their stories relating to Young People.

Our programme is very much driven by these issues and your interests in them, so stay current and let’s talk about what you think and what we can do.

We were delighted to receive an update from Rachel Bott (graduate of the Childhood and Youth BA (Hons) in 2017) and so impressed by all she has achieved.

You can read Rachel’s update here: https://www.northampton.ac.uk/student_profile/rachel-bott/

I’m writing this post from a Learning Hub classroom on a sunny March Saturday, still feeling quite the positive glow after this morning’s Discovery day experience.

It’s always such a privilege when people feel able to share their experiences and beliefs in discussion. You all have so much to bring to the programme and to the children and young people with whom you will work; as well as to the children and young people’s wider workforce.

Today, in our Discovery day explorations, we have looked at what it means to be a child and how that differs from what it means to be an adult…. or how being a child differs from being a ‘young person’. What you can see in the images below are the notes made during our discussion that built into such an interesting framework! We started off very much seeing children as being dependent, in need to of support, learning how to be an adult but not ready for adult things yet. We decided that we saw ‘young people’ as being that stage from puberty leading up to adulthood. We considered how society might see, and the media might portray, children (as needing protection and nurture, vulnerable) and young people (selfish, thugs, rebels) and that idea that childhood is a preparation stage for adulthood – but not just any adulthood; one that is independent and productive. We complicated this by asking where did this locate adults (in age) who were dependent, and vulnerable, and in need of much support…. Ultimately, we moved from a linear pathway between childhood and adulthood to something much more circular. Shakespeare would have been proud of us, as (basically) we were echoing his 7 ages of man!

Where was this all leading? At the end of our time together, we wanted to consider what this meant for the necessary and best attributes of a professional working with children and young people. The mission was to imagine we had a test-tube into which we could place 3 ingredients to make the ideal professional for the childhood and young people (CYP) workforce. Those ingredients were: Diversity, Passion and Commitment; and being a good and empathetic listener/ building relationships. This seems like a very thoughtful and productive combination of attributes! What was striking was that the first attribute, diversity, very much speaks to the structures of the system and the need to remove barriers to participation in the CYP workforce (eg attitudes to men working in the Early Years). We had much conversation about the value of role models and our wish for diversity really linked strongly to that.

So, I am looking forward to working with the people I met today in the next academic year. It is clear they have a lot to offer. I hope to meet more of you on such Discovery days and am excited for more such conversations and explorations in the months and years to come. A big thanks to today’s participants for their engagement!

This is a question we are often asked by prospective students and offer holders!

We love that enthusiasm 🙂

Every module you study at the university will have its own reading list and all the materials on that list will be available to you in the university library – often/usually also in e-book format.

There is no particular ‘course reader’, although any introductory book relating to Childhood and Youth might be found helpful. This is one such recent text from our EDU1025 ‘Introduction to Childhood and Youth’ reading list. We also recommend this study skills guide (and study skills are well supported at the university through ‘skillshub’ and by our Learning Development and library colleagues, as well as course tutors).

So, let’s say you wanted to get a head start and begin reading up before the course began… what might you do?

There are some key websites that will be useful for staying abreast of current related issues. For example:

The Children’s commissioner’s website: LINK

Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG): LINK

Young Minds website: LINK

The Department for Education: LINK

And you may wish to keep your finger on the pulse of current issues relating to children and young people through media reporting, through – for example – looking for ‘young people’ in the ‘society’ section of an online newspaper such as The Guardian: LINK

We hope these will give you some good options for getting you started with your course-related reading.

Newsletter Oct 4th 2021

Would you like to read our community newsletter?

We are part of Childhood, Youth and Families and this is our first newsletter of the academic year.

There are two sets of standards that particularly inform our work on the programme.

These are the national occupational standards for Youth Work https://nya.org.uk/national-occupational-standards-and-english-youth-work-policy-new-document-published/

And Social Pedagogy standards http://www.thempra.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Social-pedagogy-standards-FINAL.pdf

If you are considering joining us, you might find these standards interesting!

Children’s commissioner report September 2021

“The Children’s Commissioner’s Big Ask set out to hear the voices of as many
children in England as possible, to amplify them, and to deliver improved life
chances for this generation and beyond. Over half a million responded – a record
for a survey of its kind.
We can think of this report as The Big Answer. But more broadly, it is the first
of many answers. The Big Ask tells us what children need urgently, as we
recover from the pandemic, but also long‑term. We have begun an ongoing
intergenerational dialogue, in which adults take responsibility for finding those
answers too, and for making them happen.
A striking aspect of the data is that across age, gender, ethnicity, family income
levels, location, vulnerable groups, what children want is remarkably consistent:
a good home life, a good education, a job, enough money, friends, to feel well,
to be treated fairly and to look after the environment. In short – to do well and
create a better world.”

It’s the last few days before Welcome (back) week and the process of students moving back to campus or other student accommodation is well underway. Our commuting students have been readying themselves. Pre-enrolments and enrolments are very much in progress.

We are really excited to welcome our students to the new academic year and several important programme-specific activities, are all planned out and ready to go!

And there is loads going on around the university: https://www.northampton.ac.uk/events/welcome-and-induction-week-thursday-30-september/

https://northamptonunion.com/welcomeweek

It’s really important to us that our students feel welcome and supported right from the beginning of their time with us and through to graduation and beyond.