This degree offers you the chance to strengthen your skills, knowledge and confidence before you advance to stage one of your honours degree.

Course description

If you want to be a positive force in the lives of young people and their communities this is the degree for you. Youth work and community development processes and values enable young people to make decisions about their lives, build personal resilience and raise aspirations.

This is one of the largest professional youth and community work training courses in the country providing you with a challenging and worthwhile career that will:

• Prepare you for professional roles in public, voluntary and private organisations working with young people and communities.
• Achieve a JNC professional qualification in youth work endorsed by the National Youth Agency (NYA) and an endorsement for community development by the
• Endorsement and Quality Standards Board for Community Development (ESB).
• Undertake an exciting pathway in your final year to hone your knowledge and skills around particular groups, which could also include a further professional qualification in youth justice if you select that pathway (Youth Justice in Effective Practice Certificate - YJEPC).

With its emphasis on innovation and effective informal engagement, this course equips you with the professional skills and knowledge to have a positive impact on people’s lives.

We’re proud to welcome applications from candidates with practice experience in youth work, health, social care and education. This is as part of our commitment to enable those from non-traditional backgrounds to be able to study as part of our commitment to widening participation.

Careers

Anywhere you find young people, you can work professionally with them as youth workers in diverse multi-professional fields. Our graduates go on to work in education, health promotion, mental health, youth justice, housing, multi-agency teams, voluntary sector, community projects, community arts, outdoor learning, advocacy, advice, counselling and employment sectors, for example:

Multi-agency teams working with children, young people and vulnerable adults

• Alternative curriculum projects
• Teenage pregnancy projects
• Voluntary sector youth work
• Homelessness and social housing initiatives
• Youth/adult offending and rehabilitation work
• Refugee and asylum-seeker support agencies
• School and FE student support
• Care-leaving and advocacy work
• Faith-based community and youth work
• Dual-diagnosis youth support teams, addressing issues such as mental ill health and drug use
• Health promotion
• Community mental health
• Community development
• Community arts
• Outdoor education
• Agencies which support young people and adults into employment

If you're already employed in community and youth work, this qualification could be your springboard to more senior and specialist roles where you can add further value to your organisation.