Placments & Mentors
PLACEMENTS:
Each student on the National Certificate in Christian Youth Work will need a ‘placement’ where they can undertake youth work and use their learning within the course.
Criteria for placements:
- A placement would normally be:
-a church youth club/group;
-a group of churches;
-a local youth work project run by a group of churches/Christians or
-a Youth for Christ Centre or similar youth organisation. - The youth work or project must be with young people in the 11 - 25yrs age range and be in places where they chose to come together.
- For each module a student needs to be able to undertake at least 12 hours of contact work with young people. The Placement will need to provide someone who can ‘sign off’ the hours of Youth Work on the Student’s Coursework Submission Sheet which is part of the evidence for assessment.
- The placement needs to agree to and support the youth leader as a student on the course. This will involve active prayer, practical and financial support for the youth work and the youth worker.
- The placement needs to be committed to the Pastoral support of the youth leader/learner.
- The placement will need to ensure that the learner is ‘not un-safe’ to work with children, young people and/or vulnerable adults. This means that the placement must ensure that the learner has a Criminal Records Bureau Enhanced Disclosure - whether this is undertaken by the placement directly or through another agency is up to the placement, who should also take up references if appropriate.
Process
When a learner enrols on the course, the application form will include a section for the placement and the signature of someone from the placement to confirm the above arrangements.
MENTORS
A youth work ‘mentor’ is someone with whom the learner can meet and talk through the things that they are doing. The mentor plays an important role in the learner’s understanding of youth work. They will ask questions to help learners think through the issues within their youth work and apply their learning to their practice.
It is the learner’s responsibility to identify a suitable person. We encourage learners to spend some time thinking and praying about who to talk with and get them to agree in advance. There is a special note in Module 1 for Mentors to support them through the times with the learner.
A mentor will normally be someone who has had significant experience and/or training in the field of Christian Youth Work and who is committed to training others.
Time and Money !
Within each module learners are required to write Course Diary pages. These pages enable them to write about the youth work they have done and what they have learnt from the process. They are then encouraged to use these Course Diary pages with their Mentor as a starting point for discussion and learning.
We would recommend a minimum of one and a maximum of three hours spent with a Mentor over the course of a module. Learners and Mentors can decide together how to arrange this, how long to meet and where.
Due to the need to run this whole course on a ‘shoe-string’ there is no finance available for mentors at the moment. We hope that the Christian community will see this as a valuable way of training others and thus support the work for the benefit of the Kingdom.