Course Title: Youth Work Skill Sets

Part A: Course Overview

Course Title: Youth Work Skill Sets

Credit Points: 12.00

Terms

Course Code	Campus	Career	School	Learning Mode	Teaching Period(s)
HWSS2134	City Campus	Undergraduate	365H Global, Urban and Social Studies	Face-to-Face	Sem 2 2007, Sem 1 2008, Sem 1 2009, Sem 1 2010, Sem 1 2011, Sem 1 2012, Sem 1 2013, Sem 1 2014, Sem 1 2015, Sem 1 2016, Sem 1 2017, Sem 1 2018

Course Coordinator: Michael Emslie

Course Coordinator Phone: +61 3 9925 8272

Course Coordinator Email: michael.emslie@rmit.edu.au

Course Coordinator Location: 48.4.26

Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities

As a second year core course, students need to have satisfactorily completed the two core first year youth work programs and ‘Doing Youth Work 1’ offered in first semester second year as this course builds on work done in those courses.

Course Description

This is a core second year course offered in the first semester of second year.
It is designed to ensure that professional capabilities central to youth work are
successfully introduced to inform the professional development of graduates. The course is
divided into four components each of which focuses on specific kinds of practice
knowledge and skill sets critical to youth work.

The first component introduces students to face to face youth work practice (whether in an outreach context or in an agency based service). The expertise required for this includes a working knowledge of emergency
services, modes of working with vulnerable young people informed by core ethical ideas
like a duty of care, effective referrals (ie., anonymity, disclosing and accessing
information), and occupational health and safety issues in outreach service
provision (ie., identifying hazards and risks, incident reports).

The second component introduces students to the skills required for effective
professional youth work practice invarious settings such as statutory services (ie. child protection, juvenile
justice), the schooling system, non-Government organisations and Local Government. Students will be invited to practice and develop
elementary forms of practice that includes making assessments, working with
challenging behaviors, and working within specific legislative, policy and institutional
constraints in ways again that are informed by notions like duty of care.

The third component of the course introduces students to effective professional work
inside agencies with particular emphasis on effective collegial practices that includes
supervision and work-planning using various supervisory instruments, codes of conduct,
privacy, consent policies, and debriefing). Students are also introduced to models
of case management (case work policies, casework planning, decision-making, termination of case work relationships, post support).

The final component of the course presents the skills and knowledge required for working
with ‘the community’. This entails working with key stake-holders at an organizational
level (ie., government, various institutions, business) as well as at an individual level
(ie., teachers, policy, police, parents etc) and the knowledge and skills required to work with and within diverse communities. 
 

Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development

By the end of this course students will:
1. Be able to demonstrate a working knowledge of professional capabilities central to
youth work and appreciate how those capabilities inform their own professional
development
2. Have an understanding of how the kind of work involved in outreach or
street-based youth work, and have a working knowledge of the services, modes of
practice and ethics that inform this kind of work
3. be able to identify the skills required for effective youth work practice in statutory
services.
4. Be able to articulate specific collegial practices.
5. Demonstrate a clear understanding of the key skills and knowledge required for working
with ‘the community’.

The course will produce outcomes identified in the generic graduate capabilities 1, 2, 3 and
4. It also provides learning activities designed to realize youth work specific graduate
capabilities 1, 2, 3 and 4.
 

Overview of Learning Activities

The kind of learning activities students will experience in this course include use of information and communications technology to research various sources, such as the Internet, printed media, historical, social science accounts, and autobiographies.
Learning activities will also include formal lectures, workshops incorporating group work, active problem based learning, interviews, comparative and textual analysis, and field work.
 

Overview of Learning Resources

Students will need to access to prescribed and recommended texts and information technology (computers, data bases).

Overview of Assessment

Assessment tasks are directly linked to the stated objectives and graduates capabilities. Assessment tasks will include class based activities, and written reports, essays, folios, oral reports, and annotated visual reports.