Community and Youth Work BA (Hons)

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Transform the lives of vulnerable communities. Empower disadvantaged young people to achieve their potential. Qualify for an incredibly satisfying career in youth and community work where you'll be changing lives every day.

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Overview

The BA (Hons) Community and Youth Work degree will prepare you for a successful career in working with young people and in communities across a variety of settings.

Our recently updated youth work course offers you the opportunity to develop your ability to work with communities and young people (both theoretically and via extensive practice) and study the knowledge, skills and values of youth work and community development in order to graduate with a professional JNC qualification in Youth Work alongside your degree.

Just like the practice of community development and youth work, this course has been designed in a creative way and offers much more than lectures and writing essays, by going beyond the theoretical. You'll learn how to understand the problems faced by young people and communities and how to change situations and realities. The curriculum focuses on achieving social justice and celebrating the assets that are abundant in communities and societies, particularly within those communities that have been disadvantaged. The curriculum offers you a holistic learning experience which has professional practice and employability built in.

If you're ready to make a positive difference in the world, the team are ready to hear from you.

Why us?

Our Social Work courses (which includes Community and Youth Work) are 1st in the North East and 15th in the UK (Complete University Guide 2024)
Our BA (Hons) Community and Youth Work course has a 100% positivity score for 'assessment and feedback' and 'academic support' (National Student Survey, 2023)
The University of Sunderland has been delivering youth work courses for over 45 years
We don’t just focus on theory, but we embed this learning with practice

The course is delivered by experienced and qualified community and youth workers who will teach and support you on your professional journey. This will include close pastoral support and support to become competent and confident professionals.
We are the only institution in the North East to offer professionally qualifying (JNC) Youth Work degrees

Course structure

During your studying, some of your learning will take place in the classroom, learning from each other and reading. However, community development and youth work are vocations, and it’s important to learn from real work-based experience as well as from academic study. For this reason, work placements are an integral part of the Community and Youth Work degree. By the time you graduate, you will have spent at least 800 hours in professional practice, within a minimum of two local community development and youth work organisations. This means your learning can evolve in surprising places, such as around a pool table, on a walk, in a community café, or in a multi-agency meeting.

If you’re already working in a community and youth work setting, then you may be able to complete your placement at your workplace, as long as the work is relevant and there are adequate supervision arrangements in place. You’ll also need to complete at least one placement in a setting which is not your workplace, to ensure that you get the maximum benefit from your placement experience.

Learning on campus will reflect the collaborative, empowering and reflective nature of community development and youth work – so expect a lot of dialogue, reflection and group work. Throughout your degree, you'll have one-to-one support from a designated Personal Academic Tutor who will support your progress from Fresher’s week to graduation.

The course utilises a range of assessment methods, including written assignments (reports, essays, reflections); individual, paired and group presentations; professional discussions; and the construction of portfolios. The broad range of assessment strategies encompasses the skills required within the community development and youth work profession, allowing you to develop a wide range of competencies while gradually increasing your confidence.

Year 1 (national level 4):

Introduction to Community Development and Youth Work (30 credits)

Learn about the history and evolution of community and youth work as a distinct profession. Enable current contexts to be understood through historical and developmental lenses with a focus on social justice.

Practice and Academic Skills (30 credits)

Focus directly on the profession of community and youth work in its contemporary context. Develop your confidence and academic skills in reading, writing, group work, presentations, analysis of information, using library resources, referencing, and others to enable you to fulfil your potential.

Communities, Young People and Me (30 credits)

Reflect on the concepts of “self”, “young people”, “community”, and “professionalism” alongside your experiences in the workplace. Build your confidence in applying theory to practice and start to form your professional identity.

Theoretical Frameworks for Practice (30 credits)

Gain an understanding of theorising as a useful, everyday practice rather than as a remote academic pursuit. Bridge the transition to Year 2 while consolidating learning from Year 1.

Some modules have prerequisites. Read more about what this means in our Help and Advice article.

Year 2 (national level 5):

Reflexive Ethical Practice (30 credits)

Explore the concept and practice of reflexivity to optimise your learning via teaching inputs, workplace activity (including the development of a specific piece of work), supervision and reflection on your progress in meeting the professional expectations in the NOS for Youth Work and Community Development.

Exclusion, Subjugation and Inequalities (30 credits)

Focus on the impact of multiple forms of oppression. Link the local with the global and personal to develop an appreciation and understanding of how oppression serves to exclude and subjugate young people and communities. Challenge yourself to consider how you risk improving rather than transforming oppressive forms of practice and how this can be resisted.

Leadership for Emancipation (30 credits)

Analyse leadership of self, organisations, practice and change through the lenses of rights, empowerment, equalities, ethics, and professionalism. Compile a reflexive account of your journey with leadership and create a plan for your further development and associated support needs.

Celebration as an Act of Resistance (30 credits)

Explore the complex cultural landscape in which the identities of young people and members of communities are formed and through which their lives get played out. Examine forms of resistance through subcultures, cultural movements, and collective action for social change.

Year 3 (national level 6):

Research in Action (30 credits)

Build on your research skills developed during Year 2 and demonstrate your capacity to undertake a research project. Benefit your own learning, your placement organisation, and the needs of young people in the community via a traditional dissertation or an organisational needs analysis.

Challenging Perceptions: Criticality in the Everyday (30 credits)

Explore how “knowledge” and “truth” are experienced using analytical explorations of everyday literacies. Synthesise theoretical understandings with criticality in pursuit of your individual, critical praxis.

Reading My World: Professional Identity Formation (30 credits)

Use techniques of reflexivity to appraise your progress across the whole course to consolidate and confirm your identity and growth as a professional, critical practitioner. Complete the module ready to bring about transformative change in the field.

Co-Designed Learning* (30 credits)

Examine an area of interest that directly influences community development and youth practice in depth. Shape the module to support your professional development and competencies, giving you an additional edge when you graduate.

*Alternatively, you may choose to engage with learning from another course for this elective module.

More about BA (Hons) Community and Youth Work at Sunderland

Discover more articles

You can access free Wi-Fi throughout the University campus, so you can work from anywhere. If you don't want to carry a laptop around, just use one of the University’s PCs or Macs. We have hundreds of computers for you to use in the Murray Library, St Peter's Library, and the David Goldman Informatics Centre. If you ever have any technical problems, just ask the friendly helpdesk team.
IT provision
University library services will be central to your study experience and are delivered at our two libraries on campus, as well as online. Our libraries offer a variety of study environments to meet your needs, including areas for groupwork, individual and silent study. You’ll also have access to desktop PCs, space to use your own mobile technology and printing facilities.

The library works closely with academic staff within each faculty to offer specialist, industry standard resources in your subject discipline. The Faculty of Social Sciences provides thousands of relevant books and e-books, with many more titles available through the inter-library loan service. You’ll also have access to a comprehensive range of print and electronic journals which are always kept up to date, including Project Muse, Lexis, JSTOR and many more.

To find out more information, visit our University Library website.
Library Services - social sciences
Map and directions

Facilities

You'll be based at the recently refurbished Wearside View, situated on the award-winning Sir Tom Cowie Campus at St Peter's. This stunning riverside location benefits from dedicated library services and has superb transport links with the city centre and City Campus.

Entry requirements

Our typical offer is:

Qualification	Minimum grade
High School Diploma along with one of the following at the required grade: SAT I and SAT II, ACT or Advanced Placement	GPA 3.0 or above and: Sat score of 1100/1600 from SATs AP (Grades 3+ in at least 2 subjects) ACT (score of 26+)

If you don't meet our standard entry requirements, you can take one of the foundation pathways at our partners ONCAMPUS Sunderland. Find out more information and whether your course is eligible on our ONCAMPUS page.

If your qualification is not listed above, please contact the Student Administration team at studentadmin@sunderland.ac.uk for further advice.

It is recommended that you have completed a minimum of 100 hours of practical work with young people and/or communities prior to commencement on a programme.

If English is not your first language, please see our English language requirements.

We are seeking ESB recognition as a professional community development qualification for this course, though the validation process is not yet complete.

Is your qualification not displaying here? For international qualifications, search our full list of international entry requirements for this course.

Fees and finance

Take a look at the Your Finances section to find out about the scholarships and bursaries that may be available to you.

This information was correct at the time of publication.

The Sir Tom Cowie Campus at St Peter's by night

Career ready

Qualified community and youth workers are in high demand. With a varied repertoire of value-based and practice-related skills, community and youth workers find employment throughout local authorities and the voluntary, charity, and social enterprise sectors.

As a qualified professional, you’ll be eligible for the higher levels of salary scales set by the Joint Negotiating Committee for Youth and Community Workers.

To find out more about what community and youth work involves, read our article, or read more about what you can do with a Social Science degree.

Enhancing your professional practice

An important part of our Community and Youth Work course is the work-based experience you'll gain from your placements. By the time you graduate, you will have spent at least 800 hours in professional practice to enhance your training. As well as exposing you to a range of experiences and helping you understand the realities of community and youth work, placements are an excellent way of establishing professional contacts for your career.

You'll also have the opportunity to engage with the community development and youth work sector via guest lectures and speakers.

Centre for Applied Social Sciences

The University of Sunderland’s Centre for Applied Social Sciences (CASS) regularly hosts visiting speakers and it can be an excellent way to learn from the real-life experience of people who already have a strong track record in social policy.

CASS is the centre for applied social science research at the University and you may find opportunities to collaborate with the academic team – particularly in areas relating to children, young people and families.

Meet the students

I go home at the end of each day knowing that I've made a real difference to the lives of others.

Holly Robinson
The University of Sunderland has a fantastic reputation with regards to youth work.

Ruth Walker

Related courses

Contact

Contact the Student Helpline for further information about studying at the University of Sunderland:

0191 515 3000

student.helpline@sunderland.ac.uk

View Programme Specifications for the Faculty of Education and Society.

Page last updated: 22 September 2023

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