Youth and Community Development Studies MA/PG Dip

Postgraduate

Distance

£ 5,725 VAT inc.

Description

  • Type

    Postgraduate

  • Methodology

    Distance Learning

  • Duration

    1 Year

  • Online campus

    Yes

  • Delivery of study materials

    Yes

  • Support service

    Yes

  • Virtual classes

    Yes

Would you like a rewarding career supporting vulnerable young people? Do you have a passion to help them reach their full potential? A career in youth and community development is the opportunity to make a crucial difference to people’s lives.

Through gaining the professional skills and knowledge taught on this course, your work can provide support to families and community groups and help keep young people safe.

The blend of practical and academic skills you’ll be taught on this programme can prepare you for a range of jobs across several sectors. It will help develop you as a progressive practitioner, providing opportunities to explore various concepts and practices of social justice and equality. With the option to study either full-time or part-time, you can manage your studies effectively alongside work commitments. This programme is ideal for those who use group work, informal learning, outreach and community work as part of their role, particularly those working with young people and adults often identified as hard to reach.

Throughout this course you’ll benefit from inter-professional learning as the course attracts professionals from a variety of settings and sectors worldwide, including parenting education, youth work, children’s centres, sexual health, drug and substance abuse, housing and homelessness, youth offending, disability, mental health, community development, domestic violence, local government sector, voluntary and not-for-profit sector and non-governmental organisations.

About this course

Demonstration of ability to work at master’s level which can be achieved through having a first degree, normally at 2:2 or above, or by having a range of academic and work experience
You are normally expected to have a professional qualification in an area related to work
You must be engaged in at least 12 hours’ appropriate work, paid or unpaid, per week

Key features

Benefit from the flexible approach this programme offers, allowing you to tailor your studies specifically to your career interests, enhancing your employment opportunities in your desired field.
You have the choice to study part-time or full-time alongside your work commitments, mainly through distance learning with two block teaching weeks per academic year.
With this course you’ll be able to develop your skills to be an innovative, progressive practitioner, able to engage reflectively with concepts and practices of social justice and equality.
Learn from our team of expert academics who can draw on more than 55 years’ professional training experience in the field, so their sector insight will inform your learning and keep you acquainted with contemporary challenges and practices.
Research conducted by our academics in areas such as Diversity and Inequalities, Youth Work and Community Development, Public Health and Professional Practice, Health and Social Care; is embedded into the curriculum to ensure learning is current and relevant.
Many of our graduates progress on to a wide variety of careers in youth work and community development, as well as other roles related to non-clinical, non-medical health and educational services in both the statutory and voluntary sectors.

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This centre's achievements

2021

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More than 50 reviews in the last 12 months

This centre has featured on Emagister for 15 years

Subjects

  • Mental Health
  • Management
  • Staff
  • IT
  • International
  • IT Development
  • IT Management

Course programme

Course modules

Students will follow a generic pathway; offering the greatest flexibility

Core modules include:

  • Theory and Practice of Community Development - introduces students to key concepts explored in relation to practice, policy and National Occupation Standards
  • Theory and Practice of Youth Work - using the National Occupational Standards students will be introduced to the key concepts in youth and community development work. and the key theoretical contexts for youth and community practice: political (policy), sociological, philosophical, historical and psychological
  • Health and Social Research Methods - introduces strategies and methods of social science research commonly used in social and healthcare settings.

You will also choose four modules from a range of optional modules, depending on availability, your preferred pathway and specific career interests, including:

  • Issues of Health and Well-being
  • Mental Health
  • Contemporary Social Issues
  • Global Issues in Youth and Community Development
  • Managing Race and Diversity
  • Anti-oppressive Practice - analyses concepts of oppression, discrimination and inequality and develops effective anti-oppressive and anti-discriminatory practice
  • Management of Services and People - increases self-confidence and performance as a manager of people and projects within a youth work and community development environment
  • The Negotiated Module - allows you to formulate, present and implement an individual proposal in an area of professional relevance and interest

Please contact us for optional module descriptions and further information. For completion of the full MA, you will also be required to undertake.

Dissertation - Students must choose a youth and community development related topic identified in discussion with academic staff

Teaching and assessment

All core and most option modules are launched during one of two block teaching weeks held each year, usually in September and January. These modules are supported by a wide variety of written material, individual and organisational tasks. Students are required to engage in a number of online seminars in each module. Contributions to them are compulsory, and are an attendance requirement.

The course aims to build a learning community, from the initial contact during the induction block teaching week onwards. Assessment is usually by written assignment of 4,000 words per 15 credit module.

Academic expertise

The department is home to the National Youth Work Collection and has one of the largest teams in the UK. In the past six years, the authors in the division have published nine books and a range of papers. Staff work with a range of organisations that work with young people and communities including charities, voluntary and statutory agencies at local, national and international levels.

Thematic areas of interest include:

  • A specialist expertise and interest in global youth and community development work (resulting in numerous conferences and publications by Dr Momodou Sallah, a leading expert in this area, who has also been recently awarded a The Times Higher Education Most Innovative Teacher of the Year)
  • Work with black young people (again, resulting in key conferences and texts by Dr Carlton Howson and Dr Momodou Sallah)
  • Youth participation and citizenship
  • Anti-oppressive practice (Dr Jagdish Chouhan)
  • Hospital and other health-related youth work (Dr Scott Yates)
  • The context, management and operation of children and young people’s services (Mary Tyler)
Teaching contact hours

This course is taught via distance learning. Compulsory attendance, when there are direct contact hours with staff, is for two block teaching weeks per year when teaching is timetabled for seven hours each day, and when the dissertation is launched.

Following each block week tutors teach via module guides and their integral activities, directed reading, e-seminars or on line action learning sets. Typically this means there is weekly tutor contact via written interventions in the seminars and oral interventions in the sets which are normally for student groups of between six and sixteen students. Personal tutorials and dissertation supervision are either conducted by telephone, or face to face for students studying full time and based in or near Leicester. Contact hours per week depend on the teaching method used, whether students are studying full or part time and which modules they are studying. The majority of the learning is via personal study – typically twenty hours studying and revising in your own time each week for full time students (less for part time students), including substantial guided study using module guides, directed readings, online activities, etc.

Youth and Community Development Studies MA/PG Dip

£ 5,725 VAT inc.