Our MOOC project

Here are the partner organisations in order of appearance throughout the MOOC:

• ThemPra Social Pedagogy, a pioneering social enterprise providing organisational capacity-building through vocational courses in social pedagogy, strategic consultancy and team development
• KJSH – Stiftung für Kinder-, Jugend und Soziale Hilfen e.V., a large not-for-profit organisation providing social pedagogical services in youth care and VET activities in Germany
• University of Central Lancashire, one of the largest Schools of Social Work in the UK and recently developed a BA in Social Pedagogy, Advocacy and Participation
• Københavns Professionshøjskole, a leading provider of full-time distance learning degree programmes in social pedagogy
• CommonView, a VET organisation providing coaching and consultancy in social pedagogy both in Denmark and the UK, with expertise in cross-cultural learning transfer of innovative social pedagogical practice
• Masarykova Univerzita, Brno, one of the largest universities for social pedagogy studies and actively involved in sector developments in Central and Eastern Europe
• Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, who are at the forefront of social pedagogy qualifications and lead the social pedagogy discourse in Spain and Latin America
• Universiteit Gent, with substantial teaching and research expertise in social pedagogy, contributing to its discourse both in Flanders and internationally.

As a holistic, relationship-based way of working with children, young people and adults in educational and care settings from early years, school support, foster care, youth justice, residential child care, family support, support for people with disabilities and elderly care, social pedagogy is well established in many European countries. Given the inadequate educational and well-being outcomes for many of the most disadvantaged groups in British society (particularly looked-after children, families experiencing multiple problems) the social care sector is called upon to achieve fundamental changes. The high-profile Munro review of child protection argued for a child-centred system as is commonly found in countries where social pedagogy underpins care and welfare provisions. The influential Association of Directors of Children’s Services therefore recommended that local authorities should adopt social pedagogy to ensure ‘a consistent and holistic approach to underpin the commissioning and provision of support for children and young people across the age range, and their families’. Whilst social pedagogy is clearly recognised as a way of addressing the need for systemic change and pilot projects have consistently demonstrated its potential to improve outcomes, taking social pedagogy to scale is hampered by the cost of training a substantial part of the workforce and a lack of free comprehensive learning resources that can offer compelling insights into social pedagogical practice in other countries and support innovation.

We aim to address these issues through a Massive Open Online Course in European social pedagogy, consisting of 8 sessions that offer unique insights into social pedagogy in the partner countries. Our international multi-sector partnership between 8 organisations leading social pedagogy developments in higher education, vocational training and organisational capacity-building is designed to share innovative and best practice across linguistic barriers that have frequently prevented cross-fertilisation in social care across Europe. To support this aim and influence policy-making, we will also produce an academic research report that draws on the learning about social pedagogy between the 6 participating countries, outlines innovative ideas with the potential to impact on social care practice and makes policy recommendations about how these can be cross-culturally translated in order to develop a coherent conceptual and practice framework in social pedagogy across Europe. The report will be published in June 2019.

We hope that the MOOC and the academic research report will reach many people around the globe and contribute to social pedagogy developments internationally, particularly in countries where interest in social pedagogy is still relatively new. If you’d like to find out more, please contact us.