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The course is a BA (Hons) in Youth and Community Work and it also has the JNC validation, which
is the professional qualification for professionally qualified youth and community workers. Youth
and Community Work is often defined by what it isn't, rather than what it is, so it's
not social work, it's not teaching. For me, youth work is about informal social education,
it's about engaging with young people, it's about educating them, but not in the formal
sense of education. It's just really exciting and challenging.
It can challenge you. You get to know a lot of things that you think you already know,
you just gain more experience and understanding. The first year starts off with a study skills
module - that's the initial module because we recognise that for some students, they've
not always had a positive experience of education. Students then do a bit of psychology, a bit
of understanding what youth is about, which is, I suppose, a mix of social policy and
sociology, and look at values and ethics and there's a placement in each of the years.
I've done three quite varied placements, so in my first year, I was doing residential
retreat work in a Catholic retreat centre. In my second year, I did some work with Lancaster
Young People Service. I've been on two placements so far, one was
at Morecambe High, in a school, and the other one was at Signpost at Preston, so they were
both different placements, but both just as challenging and as interesting as each other.
In the second year, the focus is - starts to introduce management and leadership. We
do look at the history and development of youth and community work. In the third year,
there's another management and leadership module that's focus around strategic management
and the themes around young people and youth and discourses of youth is continued.
The tutors on this course - they're great. If you need them, they're there. You know,
they'll fit you in one to one, but we also, every week we do, like, a group. They split
us into groups, so we go once a week and we nip up and see our personal tutor.
I like the small campus and kind of, the really, like, happy atmosphere and friendly atmosphere
on campus is really good as well. I think it's really important for students
to come along and have a look at the campus. When we do open days, potential students get
the chance to meet the staff and we also try and get existing students to come along and
take part in those open days.