Undergraduate - UnitAZA4310 - Child and youth care policy and leadership: advocating for the rights of children and youth

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2013 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

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Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Organisational Unit	School of Social Science, South Africa
Offered	Not offered in 2013
Coordinator(s)	Precious-Pearl Vezi

Synopsis

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) rests on four pillars: survival rights, development rights, protection rights and participation rights. These pillars are used in this unit as they provide an appropriate policy and legislative framework for children and youth at risk and articulate the notion of children's rights. Inter-sectoral integration, the establishment of minimum standards of care, adjustments to legislation and programmatic responses are incorporated in this movement. Students will gain an understanding of the impact legislation has in the child rights' area locally and abroad through the application of case studies. The unit will cover the process of policy development and evaluation and will explore the skillsrelated to the managerial responsibility of supervision. The aim of the unit is to prepare the child and youth care worker for the more strategic macro level responsibility of ensuring that services to children and youth are aligned with policy and legislation through procedural knowledge and supervision skills.

Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the unit, students should be able to:

Evaluate and design policies with the policy development process.
Identify and explain policy principles
Explore current legislative and policy frameworks that guide child and youth development services in South Africa
Provide an overview of international legislation that impacts on service to children and youth
Describe the rights of young people and promote these in practice
Integrate the role of advocate into the professional repertoire.
Demonstrate basic knowledge of grants and how to access them
Explainthe skills underlying supervision and leadership

Assessment

Weekly group application exercises: 20%
Weekly online quizzes: 10%
Weekly discussion forum entries: 10%
Major assignment essay - Designing a policy proposal: 60%

Chief examiner(s)

Dr Rika Swanzen

Contact hours

Total weekly workload of 12 hours comprising:
3 hours face to face contact per week in the form of weekly seminars. The remaining 9 hours will be spent in preparation for the seminars and researching and writing for the final essay assignment.