The Professional Association’s Annual Conference 2023

The Association will gather for its 2023 Annual Conference at Derby University, located in the heart of England, with a long and proud heritage of using their knowledge and innovation to support the prosperity of the city and region. They will provide a fitting location for us to explore the conference theme of ‘Formally Informal: Pedagogy, Community & Practice’.

Formally Informal:
Pedagogy, Community & Practice

Youth Work and Community Work training is perceived to be changing with the introduction of apprenticeships and to meet the changes in youth and community work practice, philosophy, and approaches.  These changes can place additional strain on training providers as well as potential opportunities.  However, it could be argued, that some aspects of training future professionals have remained constant over the years.

As trainers of professional youth and community workers there are some challenges we are, and have been, faced with: Youth and Community work have been described as a social movement, so does the formalisation of training workers remove us from this, how do we walk the fine line between formal and informal?  How do you formally educate and train informal practitioners?  Where is the place for young people and communities in our teaching, assessments, and delivery? Is having a qualification enough of a quality label on someone’s practice? Does the “JNC” really mean anything?

This conference, seeks to explore, challenge, and debate the role of training providers, in developing future practitioners, exploring how we manage an active relationship with quality label providers, government institutions, higher education establishments but also making sure that those, who youth and community work seek to serve, are equally important and involved in the process. 

The conference will explore these questions through seminar presentations, research dissemination and group discussions that share emerging practice, debate emerging realities and plan for future collaboration in addressing these changes. Our emphasis - as with all annual conferences - will be on dialogue, discussion, and debate as we reconvene to refresh our commitment to youth and community work education as we emerge in this new reality. 

seminars will address:

We are inviting contributions to themes that embrace a breadth of learning, practice and research activity related to three continuing contemporary themes:

1.       Pedagogy:  We invite contributors to present on how they have been creative in approaches to developing future practitioners of youth and community work and undertaking research: its challenges, opportunities and future possibilities.

2.       Community: We invite contributors to present on how people have built communities, either through community education and development, or through other aspects of a community of practice, including academia.

3.       Practice: We invite contributors to explore the collaborations they have developed in teaching, through the embedded involvement of young people and communities, especially exploring how we move beyond a tokenistic approach.

what to expect from the programme

The conference programme will commence at lunchtime on Wednesday 7th June and close with lunch on Friday 9th June.

The conference programme is centred around four aspects:

Sector news and updates: with invited guest speakers and presentations from member activity across the sector.

Keynotes, seminars and optional workshops: presentations and discussions led by members and students based on their research and professional practice.

Networking and collaboration: space to connect with members through social time, workshops, excursions and a celebration of peoples publications this year.

Association business: conference includes a short AGM including a report of activities for 2022-2023 and election of Directors and Strategic Development Committee members for 2023-2024.