An Interconnected Workforce
By Beck Crowhurst
The two fundamental principles of our new Foundation Degree are that it has to work for everyone in the children’s workforce, and it has to have immediate and tangible impact on their day to day practice.
In this the first of a two part post, CCW Director of Education Beck Crowhurst tackles the first principle: How can we make a degree that bridges the gaps of the children’s workforce?
The children’s workforce is a loose and baggy monster.
My son is almost five, and this week alone, he has had meaningful interactions with his classroom teacher, his phonics teacher, teaching assistants, multiple rugby coaches, a volunteer in Lego club and a judo sensei. For some children - particularly those in moments of challenge - this number of involved adults grows expansively, and critically, to include social workers, youth justice teams or pastoral mentors, amongst innumerable others.
Pinning down exactly who makes up this workforce is far from straightforward, which is why launching a Foundation Degree that supports all these professionals is an ambitious and exciting challenge. Our new Foundation Degree is designed for the wide network of practitioners working with children already, but without an undergraduate degree.
We have spent the last six months designing the curriculum alongside our partners at UEL, speaking to colleagues from across a range of sectors, and looking at best practice within HE. As this degree isn’t just for one type of worker, whether a participant is in early years, social care, or residential homes, the curriculum needs to provide a common body of knowledge. We have identified fundamental themes that cross-cut the range of professions and ensured that they are explored in a broad and foundational way. These include topics that you would expect to see in such a degree - safeguarding, child and adolescent development, and the legal frameworks and policies that govern these interrelated sectors.
However, as we are creating a holistic degree, we also have included a range of more ambitious, thought-provoking areas of study. Alongside the aspects that were deemed critical for anyone working within the children’s workforce, we have included dedicated time to explore aspects that many professionals working with children are not aware of until they learn it ‘on the job’. For example, the impact of generational trauma, the power of awe and wonder, the importance of rites of passage, and the complex interplay of socio-economic background, gender and race on a child’s identity.
But even more than that, we have been able to build in opportunities for learning about other roles within this workforce. We want our participants to finish the course with role empathy - the ability to understand the unique challenges faced by colleagues in different sectors - that cuts across the workforce. This will not only support their own career development, but also build networks of like-minded professionals for the future.
And this is the final piece of the puzzle. As the degree will be taught in locally rooted places, across the length of the country, we are aiming to have multiple clustered networks of professionals, working across the sectors, collaborating and learning together. As such, we have created opportunities for our locally based lecturers to feed into the curriculum - to explore with their participants how SEND arrangements may look different in Plymouth or Leicester, or how the different communities of urban Leeds and coastal Somerset will create different assets and challenges for families and their children.
The Foundation Degree is the first two thirds of an undergraduate degree. This is a crucial step given the extent to which a degree can unlock someone’s career trajectory and possible impact. But it is so much more than that. It has been thoughtfully created to be suitable for a wide range of possible participants. We are building a workforce that has the foundational knowledge to equip them to be up for the complexity of working within that sprawling behemoth.
To learn more, have a look at our Foundation Degree.
