Working with Children and Families
Supported by employers and practitioners, you’ll complete hands-on learning, placements and accreditation to build a career making a difference in people’s lives.
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UCAS Code
L590
Start Date
September 2026
Location
Newport
Campus Code
C
UCAS Points
88
Fees
Home students: £9,790*
International students: £17,200*
UCAS Code
L590
Start Date
September 2027
Location
Newport
Campus Code
C
UCAS Points
88
International students: £17,600*
Course Overview
The only Welsh university course endorsed by the Social Pedagogy Professional Association, providing you with sought-after skills, experience and credentials for a broad range of roles in schools, youth justice, social care, prevention and early intervention, and charities.
Professional Credibility
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Endorsed by the SPPA (Social Pedagogy Professional Association)
Why study this course?
What you'll study
Year One focuses on building your skills, confidence, and understanding of children, families, and communities.
You’ll explore person-centred practice, communication, resilience, and creative approaches to connect theory with real-world experience.
You’ll begin your degree by recognising your strengths and developing person centred skills through practice learning. You’ll build confidence, collaborate with professionals, and understand how support improves outcomes for children and families.
In this module, you’ll explore how to support children, young people and families through crisis. You’ll develop understanding of mental health, safeguarding, and resilience, preparing you to work collaboratively and compassionately in professional roles.
In this module, you’ll develop communication, counselling and engagement skills to support children and families. Through practice learning, you build confidence to work collaboratively, manage transitions, and use person centred approaches in professional settings.
By exploring creative and social pedagogy approaches, you’ll learn how theory informs practice and how partnership working supports children, families and communities across social care and related sectors.
In Year Two, you’ll apply theory to real-world practice, developing skills to support children, young people, and families.
You’ll explore digital tools, family-centred approaches, and choose between youth justice or hands-on adventure learning experiences.
Real world case studies and professional insight help you develop practical skills for working with families. You’ll build confidence using family centred approaches, practising meaningful conversations, referrals and decision making to prepare for placement and future practice.
Digital tools and emerging technologies are explored to help you support children and families effectively. You’ll learn to use digital platforms and generative AI ethically, while considering inclusion, digital poverty and how technology shapes wellbeing and development.
Linking theory directly to placement, this module helps you apply social pedagogy concepts in real professional contexts. You’ll strengthen reflective practice, planning, and evaluation skills while developing confidence to act thoughtfully and ethically in your work.
You’ll explore how youth justice can better support young people by focusing on their strengths, voices and opportunities. You’ll learn practical ways to help children make positive choices and create brighter futures.
Adventure based learning brings this module to life as you explore how play and outdoor experiences support confidence, relationships and wellbeing. Activities such as climbing, canoeing and gorge walking will help you build practical skills for engaging children and young people.
In Year Three, you’ll take a leading role in practice, applying social pedagogy, community engagement, and innovation.
You’ll drive real-world projects, mentor peers, and develop the skills to create lasting, positive impact.
Explore how to lead and inspire change across communities by working collaboratively with professionals and organisations. You’ll apply inclusive, ethical approaches in real-world settings and develop practical leadership skills that make a lasting impact.
Learn how to listen, collaborate, and drive positive change in communities. You explore social enterprise, innovation, and entrepreneurship while developing practical consultation skills to support the empower people and support communities.
Take charge of a community-based project, turning your ideas into action. You’ll lead with creativity and innovation, collaborate across agencies, and make a lasting, positive impact for children, young people, and families.
Step into a leadership role as you mentor and support peers while developing your professional skills. You’ll apply safeguarding, anti-oppressive practice, and critical reflection to real-world settings, preparing to make a positive impact with children, young people, families, and communities.
We regularly review our courses to keep pace with changing skills and employer needs. If a review leads to significant changes, we’ll contact you to explain what’s changing for the coming year.
Teaching and Assessment
In this course, you’ll learn through real-world activities that connect theory with practice. Critical reflection, peer dialogue, and formative tasks develop your professional skills, while over 400 placement hours across three years equip you with hands-on experience with children, families, and communities.
You’ll engage in collaborative, interdisciplinary learning, including workshops, simulations, and digital platforms, supported by expert tutors and professional networks. The curriculum is co-designed with practitioners and stakeholders, preparing you to act ethically, think critically, and make a positive impact while developing autonomy, digital fluency, and employability as a reflective, confident practitioner.
You’ll demonstrate your skills and knowledge through real-world tasks, including case studies, reflective journals, practical assignments, portfolios, and digital projects. Some assessments allow you to select the focus or format, enabling you to explore areas that match your interests and strengths. You’ll collaborate with peers and apply learning from placement hours to show your ability to work effectively with children, young people, and families. Your assessments will support your growth as a reflective, confident practitioner and ensures you meet professional standards to qualify as a Social Pedagogy Practitioner.
Placements give you experience of a wide range of strengths and challenges faced by children and families, and how to support them. Thanks to our strong employer networks, you will spend at least 400 hours in diverse settings ranging from working in prisons with families, children in care or at risk of exclusion, hospices, to homelessness, play, educational and substance misuse projects. You’ll receive strong support throughout, starting with preparing for placement in your first year. Our placement co-ordinator carefully matches you to a role reflecting your strengths and interests and identifies the right mentor to support your needs.
One advantage of our Newport City Campus location is that students can easily walk to various partner organisations for their placements. We’re right in the heart of Newport overlooking the River Usk with everything you’ll need on campus - a library, student union, plenty of study spaces and student accommodation just a few minutes away. The campus is well-connected by public transport and close to shops, restaurants, and cultural attractions, allowing you to enjoy student life and find opportunities for part-time work. Plus, we’re only 20 minutes from Cardiff.
Course Leader
Lise Jacobsen
Lise Jacobsen joined USW’s Youth and Community Work team in August 2018. Lise is a full-time Lecturer and Course Leader for the Undergraduate degree in Working with Children and Families. She is also Link Officer and Course Leader for the FdA Youth and Social Care delivered with partner colleges. Lise is an experienced Employability Adviser having worked with the Careers and Employability Department and the GO Wales project for 6 years, where she coached and mentored young people in employability. Lise was previously Course leader for the Youth and Community Undergraduate programme here at USW and prior to this, Senior Lecturer and Course Leader on the FdA Community Development and Cross-sector Collaboration and is experienced in widening participation, lifelong learning and community regeneration. Lise’s interests in sustainable communities, social justice and equality encouraged Lise to qualify as a youth worker in 2017.
Entry Requirements
Contextual offers
We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended, for example), your experiences and individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example). This is referred to as a contextual offer, and we receive data from UCAS to support us in making these decisions.
USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.
How to applyContextual admissions policyAsk us a question88 UCAS points or above
Typical qualification requirements
A Level:
CCD to exclude General Studies
Welsh BACC:
Pass the Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate Diploma with Grade C/D in the Skills Challenge Certificate and CD - CC at A Level to exclude General Studies.
BTEC:
Merit Merit Merit
Access to HE:
Pass the Access to HE Diploma with a minimum of 88 UCAS tariff points
T Level:
Pass (C and above)
Additional Requirements:
The University normally requires a minimum 5 GCSEs including Mathematics/Numeracy and English at Grade C or Grade 4 or above, or their equivalent, but consideration is given to individual circumstances.
An Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check on the Child & Adult Workforce and Child & Adult Barring List and subscription to the DBS Update Service is required. (Overseas equivalent required for non-uk applicants).
International applications welcomed:
We welcome international applications with equivalent qualifications of our entry requirements. For more details related to your country of residence, please view our dedicated country pages.
International studentsPre-Sessional EnglishEnglish language requirements
International applicants will need to have achieved an overall of IELTS 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component/TOEFL 4 overall and a minimum of 4 in each component or equivalent.
Equivalents can be located on our English Language pages.
If you have previously studied through the medium of English, IELTS might not be required, please visit our country specific page for further details. If your country is not featured, please contact us.
If you do not meet the English entry criteria, please visit our Pre-Sessional course pages.
Fees and Funding
per year
Studying at university is one of the most significant investments you'll ever make. Whilst you’re studying, you’ll have two main financial obligations – tuition fees and living costs. There’s lots of financial help available from the University of South Wales and external funding sources, that may provide loans (which have to be paid back) and grants, scholarships and bursaries (that don't).
*Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits. Once enrolled, the fee is anticipated to remain at the same rate throughout the duration of your study on this course except as described below.
Please be aware that we may increase the maximum fee for home students on full-time undergraduate courses only where the Welsh Government increases the permitted level of inflation of fees. Fees for all students (including part-time, postgraduate and international students) may be amended in accordance with our applicable Fees and Debt Management Policy. We will ensure that students are given clear, intelligible, unambiguous and timely information about our courses and costs in good time, ahead of the next academic year.
As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.
Enhanced DBS
Students will be expected to pay for a DBS or certificate of good behaviour from their home country. The DBS fee includes £49.50 for the enhanced DBS certificate, the Post Office Administration fee and the online administration fee
Cost: £64.74
DBS Updating service
Subscription required for each year of the course for a yearly fee of £16. Please note the service has to be joined within 30 days of receipt of your enhanced DBS certificate
Cost: £16
Resources required to support study
A range of books are available in the university library , but students often purchase key texts
Cost: £100
Travel to Placement*
Years 1, 2 and 3 - Cost is dependent on placement location.
Cost: Up to £300
per year
Studying at university is one of the most significant investments you'll ever make. Whilst you’re studying, you’ll have two main financial obligations – tuition fees and living costs. There’s lots of financial help available from the University of South Wales and external funding sources, that may provide loans (which have to be paid back) and grants, scholarships and bursaries (that don't).
*Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits. Once enrolled, the fee is anticipated to remain at the same rate throughout the duration of your study on this course except as described below.
Please be aware that we may increase the maximum fee for home students on full-time undergraduate courses only where the Welsh Government increases the permitted level of inflation of fees. Fees for all students (including part-time, postgraduate and international students) may be amended in accordance with our applicable Fees and Debt Management Policy. We will ensure that students are given clear, intelligible, unambiguous and timely information about our courses and costs in good time, ahead of the next academic year.
As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.
Enhanced DBS
Students will be expected to pay for a DBS or certificate of good behaviour from their home country. The DBS fee includes £49.50 for the enhanced DBS certificate, the Post Office Administration fee and the online administration fee
Cost: £64.74
DBS Updating service
Subscription required for each year of the course for a yearly fee of £16. Please note the service has to be joined within 30 days of receipt of your enhanced DBS certificate
Cost: £16
Resources required to support study
A range of books are available in the university library , but students often purchase key texts
Cost: £100
Travel to Placement*
Years 1, 2 and 3 - Cost is dependent on placement location.
Cost: Up to £300
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How to apply
All applications for full-time undergraduate courses or foundation degrees should be made via UCAS. Take the next step: Apply through UCAS
You can apply to us directly for all part-time undergraduate courses, if you’re seeking advanced entry or you’re an international student. To apply directly, please choose the application form below for your preferred start date and mode of study (full-time or part-time).
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Apply direct
Working with Children and Families
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Full-time, 3 years
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September
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Newport
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Apply direct
Working with Children and Families
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Full-time, 3 years
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September
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Newport
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If you already have a relevant qualification or experience related to the course you're applying for, you may be eligible to start at a later stage of the course. For example, students from partner colleges can ‘top up’ their qualifications to a degree by joining us in Year Two or Year Three of a course. This process is known as ‘advanced entry’, you can apply directly to the University for 'advanced entry' using the application forms provided above.
Applicants accepted through advanced entry may study a different combination of modules to those advertised, as they will be joining a course already in progress. You will be contacted and advised about these modules once your application has been processed and an offer made.
International applicants can apply to us directly. If the University has an in-country team in your region, your application will be assigned to them for assistance.
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