Youth Work and Social Education (BA) (ETS Endorsed) offers a professional qualification for students, and through a social science lens it explores current and contemporary challenges that are faced by young people, including:

• Trauma
• Adverse Childhood Experiences
• Substance misuse
• County Lines
• Children’s Rights
• Health and Well-being
• The impact of relationships

The degree triangulates theory, policy and practice in an applied manner to enable graduates to be both excellent academics and excellent practitioners.

Known often as the ‘best kept secret’, youth work is a powerful approach to supporting young people build resilience and resourcefulness and to achieve their full potential. Youth work is based on developing good, positive relationships with young people, and acts as the foundation for supporting young people through a range of issues. This is why the youth work degree is often viewed by other professions as a highly desirable qualification.

Course Overview

Youth Work and Social Education (BA) (ETS Endorsed) degree will equip students to be able to work with young people, communities and families, and to be practitioners who are fit for purpose in the 21st century. Through a social science lens, the programme will explore practice with young people and their communities in an applied manner, with a clear commitment to social justice, anti-oppressive practice, and underpinned by the core values and principles of youth work.

The course prepares students to become professionals to work with young people around a variety of issues – issues which are very current in today’s society, such as Child Sexual Exploitation, Adverse Childhood Experiences, Homelessness, Substance Misuse, Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Poverty and Obesity among young people – and exploring these in an applied manner, drawing on current research and best practice to equip graduates to be highly effective and reflective in their chosen fields. The programme aligns fully with Welsh Government’s commitment to “develop and strengthen specific provision aimed at supporting and improving outcomes for more vulnerable or marginalised young people’’ (WG, 2019, p.13).

Career Opportunities

Due to their aspirations when applying for a place on the degree programme, many of our graduates find employment directly in the youth work field, in both the voluntary and maintained sectors. However, the youth work qualification is known for its transferability to wider associated fields, thus demonstrating how the skills that the graduates have developed while studying on the degree programme can be transferred into many settings, and skills that are welcomed within multidisciplinary teams.

Here are some specific examples of graduate destinations:

• Face to face youth work in a range of contexts including in schools, corporate parenting teams, post-16 work, Local Authority youth homeless projects
• Education Welfare Officer
• Work with organisations focussing on issues including substance misuse, projects which support homeless young people and others that focus on adoption, looked after young people, and young adult carers
• Community education
• Youth justice
• Local Health Board
• Students Union President
• PGL Activity Instructor and Group Leader
• Young People’s Peer Mentor for a national mental health charity
• Emotional Health Worker for a Local Authority Youth Service
• CAMHS Support Worker
• Family Support for young people with disabilities
• Post-16 Youth Worker for a Local Authority Youth Service
• Youth Worker with the Corporate Parenting Team at Local Authority Youth Service