Would you like to learn more about work with children, young people or families? This module is about the diversity and complexity of children and young people’s (0–18) lives. Taught primarily through online activities the module examines their experience of the places and spaces in which they live – family, community and a range of health, education and care services. You'll develop an understanding of contemporary debates and key skills relating to safeguarding, health and wellbeing, development, inequalities and disability, social policy, multi-agency working, social pedagogy, youth justice, working with parents, foster care, education, and play. You will examine practice approaches and values, policy, and legal and rights frameworks in the UK and elsewhere in Europe.
What you will study
You will spend a large part of this module doing online computer activities. In addition to two books, written especially for this module, you will work through a series of online learning guides using innovative interactive teaching and learning activities with links to internet resources, research, wider reading and audio-visual materials.
Five themes underpin this module:
- knowledge, skills, values and technologies for collaborative practice
- diversity, inequalities, and rights
- spaces and places where children, young people and families live, learn and spend time together
- relationships between children, young people, families, community and society
- critical understanding of policy, practices and services.
The module begins by introducing you to its different elements, and includes a detailed focus on exploring the module themes. These themes take you to the fundamentals of work with children, young people and families. In the first learning guides you will also be introduced to the idea of reflective learning and practice.
Following the first learning guides, the study material focuses on effective assessment, planning and engagement. You’ll consider different ways of researching, reviewing and reflecting on practice. You’ll also have an opportunity to investigate the development of new models of working from the UK and Europe, particularly social pedagogy.
The module continues by examining how work with children, young people and families develops in the context of significant social change, and in relation to social policy and legal frameworks. You’ll study the key principles and influences on services and practices, such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and safeguarding children and young people. The focus is on the development, direction, resourcing and actions of universal and specialist services but you will also be able to examine law and policy specific to your own area of interest.
This final learning guides consider a wide range of spaces, or contexts, where the lives of children, young people and families are affected by social-economic factors and social policy. You will investigate the meanings that children and young people and their carers/parents attribute to the spaces in which they live. This includes educational, community and family spaces, as well as alternative and transitional spaces. At the end of the module you will be encouraged to reflect on your learning and consider your next steps as a learner and/or practitioner.
By the end of the module you will have knowledge and understanding of:
- the development of services for children, young people and families within a spatial (UK) and historic context
- the theories, concepts, ideologies and policies shaping childhood and challenging practice with children, young people and families
- the political, legal, ethical and rights frameworks guiding practice with children, young people and families across the UK and beyond
- contemporary research related to children, young people and families, and its application to practice
- how the personal and professional values of practitioners, service providers, children, young people and families interrelate
- diversity among children, young people and families, and how this interrelates with issues of power, inequality and agency
- new models for working with children, young people and families.
Entry
This is an OU level 2 module and you need a good knowledge of the subject area, obtained either from OU level 1 study or from equivalent work at another university. Our OU level 1 module {An introduction to health and social care [K101]} is ideal preparation for study at OU level 2 in this field.
If you have any doubt about the suitability of the module, please speak to an adviser.
Preparatory work
You will receive guidance of how to get started online in your first mailing. This will provide you with information on using your computer for OU study and working with the Computing Guide. For example, it explains how to access and use your website and online discussion forums. If you have time before the module starts, you can work through this and explore all the online services available to you.
If you have a disability
Written transcripts of any audio visual components are available. Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) or other electronic versions of printed material are available, mostly through the website. Some Adobe PDF components may not be available or fully accessible using a screen reader and scientific, foreign language or diagrammatic materials may be particularly difficult to read in this way. Other alternative formats of the study materials may be available in the future.
Most of this module is delivered online through a website providing assessment and library resources. If you use specialist hardware or software to assist you in using a computer or the internet and have concerns about accessing this type of material you are advised to contact us about support which can be given to meet your needs.
Study materials
What's included
The module consists of a series of online learning guides, two books, a booklet of additional readings and a back-up DVD. You will use the module website frequently to access assessment, teaching and library resources. The online learning guides contain specific teaching activities directing you and providing links to the different learning materials. In some cases you can choose learning materials from a range of options specific to a particular age group or national jurisdiction. Online tutorials and discussion forums will enable you to work with other students and your tutor. Electronic versions of the printed materials are provided on the website.
You will need
The audio-visual components of this module are embedded within online learning guides. Some of these are also provided on a DVD video that will play on a standard DVD player and television. If you want to view this on a computer, it will need a DVD-ROM drive and software for viewing DVDs. All the material on the DVD can also be accessed directly from the relevant sections of the online learning guide.
Teaching and assessment
Support from your tutor
You will have a tutor who will help you with the study material and mark and comment on your written work, and whom you can ask for advice and guidance. Much of your tuition is delivered online so most of the contact with your tutor will be through email, online tutorials, and online discussion forums, although phone communication may also be used. We will also offer face-to-face group tutorials that you are encouraged to attend. Where these are held will depend on the distribution of students taking the module.
Contact us if you want to know more about study with The Open University before you register.
Assessment
The assessment details for this module can be found in the facts box above.
You will be expected to submit your tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) online through the eTMA system unless there are some difficulties which prevent you from doing so. In these circumstances, you must negotiate with your tutor to get their agreement to submit your assignment on paper.