For the past year, the Covid-19 pandemic has starkly exposed the huge social inequalities and ruptures threatening to tear apart the social fabric in many countries and across the globe. The onslaught of social media has deepened divisions within societies and is increasingly leading to violent clashes reminiscent of dystopian storylines in film and fiction novels.

Amidst the deteriorating climate catastrophe, rising income inequalities, the resurgence of mainstream populism, and the accelerating replacement of human insight with technological advances through artificial intelligence, staying positive can be a challenge.

Social pedagogy and social education are about providing educational solutions to social issues, so how can we meaningfully respond during such turbulent times? How can we create hope, not just for those most affected by these challenges, but also for ourselves as social pedagogues and social educators? How can we recognise new opportunities amidst issues that seem increasingly insurmountable? It seems crucial that we face these uncertainties with a sense of resilience, hopefulness and energy, clearer insights into the complex conditions, and inspirational ideas of how we can contribute to positive change.

Join us for this important international conference to engage in the kind of dialogue that creates hope in dystopia.

Taking place online via Zoom, the 3-day conference combines live sessions and pre-recorded materials to create an engaging learning environment irrespective of your geographical location. You can contribute in a variety of ways:

• Live interactive workshops are 60-90 minute sessions with a small group of participants and focused on exploring a specific theme relevant to the conference (see list below). Facilitators must ensure that participants are actively involved throughout the workshop session.

• Live roundtable conversations are chaired 60-90 minute sessions with a panel of contributors initiating a conversation about a clearly defined theme. As live sessions, they must be designed to elicit contributions from conference participants, giving them a ‘seat around the table’.

• Pre-recorded presentations are 5-20 minute videos sharing relevant insights from practice, projects or research. The videos will premiere at the conference, with exclusive access available to delegates after the conference too. There will be several opportunities over the 3 conference days to lead informal discussions of these videos or contribute to a live roundtable conversation. Presenters must ensure that high quality recordings are uploaded by 31/05/21 together with a full transcript for closed captioning and translation purposes.

• Impromptu open space conversations will create opportunities for conference participants to explore emerging themes with others in ways that aren’t scripted or predetermined.

• Meet-ups in the virtual gardens will provide informal spaces for networking throughout the conference, which can be used to continue conversations arising from conference contributions, reconnecting with other delegates or forming new alliances with like-minded participants.

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Leadership is seen as vital to realising aspirations, achieving high-performing teams and creating positive cultures of care. The challenge, however, lies in how we can practice leadership in ways that are authentic and draw out our own and others’ potential. Just as with geese flying in V formation, leadership isn’t just about the people in the top positions – it’s essential to develop each person’s leadership potential.

With its strong emphasis on more equal relationships, learning processes, a shared life-space and ethics as first practice, social pedagogy has important implications for leadership at every level of an organisation. For the development of a social pedagogical culture within your service, it is vital that you and other leaders (such as senior managers, team leaders and other key people) know how to encourage teams to navigate complexity and are able to make situated judgments.

This three-day course provides an excellent opportunity for you as a leader to explore how key principles in social pedagogy translate into leadership, what this means for you, your team, the wider organisation and, most importantly, how social pedagogical leadership can benefit the individuals, families or groups supported by your organisation.

In facilitating the course we will draw on a variety of learning methods that make social pedagogical leadership come to life – through experiential learning activities, group discussions, theoretical inputs, reflection and action planning on how you can develop your own leadership.

This course is endorsed by the Social Pedagogy Professional Association and forms the introductory module of the MA in Social Pedagogy Leadership at the University of Central Lancashire. You therefore have the option to gain accreditation and join the MA programme, delivered as a combination of block modules and distance learning modules either full- or part-time.

Learning Aims

By connecting social pedagogical concepts and principles to practice, we aim to:

1. provide you with an enduring understanding of:
   • Social pedagogy as an ethical orientation based on recognition that human beings are intrinsically rich, have unique value and potential
   • How to convey this belief in everyday interactions and relationships through your social pedagogical leadership
   • How you can create and develop social pedagogical teams and organisations within a positive culture of care

    

2. ensure you know and are able to apply:
   • Relevant social pedagogical theories and principles for everyday leadership practice
   • How you can initiate and sustain change within a complex practice environment

    

3. make you further familiar with:
   • The role of communication and empathic listening in social pedagogical leadership
   • Ideas and activities for future team development, supervision and your personal leadership style development

Themes

• Core concepts in social pedagogy and their implications for leadership
• Introduction to and perspectives on social pedagogical leadership
• Leadership as pedagogy
• The notion of Haltung and ethics as foundational for social pedagogical practice
• The pedagogy of listening and recognition for leaders
• Nurturing motivation
• Creating, developing and sustaining a social pedagogical culture of care
• Myths and mechanisms of scaling and diffusion

Costs

1 person (self-funded): £300
1 person (employer-funded): £360

Dates

Course Facilitators

Both courses will be facilitated by Alexandra Priver and Charlotte Firing. We’re both internationally experienced practitioners in social pedagogical settings and have longstanding facilitation and leadership expertise. We’ve led on a number of ThemPra’s pioneering projects in England and Scotland, including Head, Heart, Hands, Dundee Early Intervention Team, St Christopher’s Fellowship, and our EU Leonardo Mobility funded projects exploring social pedagogy in Danish care settings. We’re also co-delivering the MA in Social Pedagogy Leadership in partnership with the University of Central Lancashire.