Social Pedagogy Toolkit

This toolkit is about ways into relational social work practice with adults. Social work is a profession based on an ethical standpoint of upholding human rights and challenging social injustice. As social workers, we can be involved in supporting people at times in their lives of great challenge and change. How we behave and the kind of person we are can make all the difference to the experience and outcome for the person we are supporting; very often what matters most to the person is not what we do but how we do it. If we can connect, have meaningful conversations and build an authentic relationship which is warm, hopeful and genuine, we can create the conditions that enable positive change.

Who is the Toolkit for?

This toolkit has been designed by Becky Squires, Principal Social Worker at Cumbria County Council. It’s available free of charge to ensure it is accessible and useful for social workers who work with adults. It doesn’t matter whether you have previously heard of social pedagogy, worked with it, or not. Throughout the toolkit, social pedagogical terms and approaches are explained in the context of social work with adults, and it offers practical guidance on putting these into practice.

Social work is about more than the brokerage of services. At its best, social work is a human encounter, providing an understanding and supportive relationship that enables a person to live a good life. This toolkit for social workers is about an approach to working alongside people that centres on the empowering potential of relationships to create hope, learning and wellbeing: social pedagogy. It will help to reconnect the things you do in practice with the reasons you probably came into the profession in the first place – to work alongside people and help to make a difference.

The toolkit supports –

• Understanding the values – and the value – of social pedagogy
• Knowing yourself and putting your values into practice
• Getting to know others and building relationships
• Social pedagogical approaches to supporting adults
• Developing your learning and practice in social pedagogy

Becky Squires is a graduate of the MA in Social Pedagogy Leadership at the University of Central Lancashire and joined our Relationship-Centred Practice course with her adult social work team in May 2022. She reflects: ‘In my role as a Principal Social Worker I hold social work values, skills and relationship-based practice as key to the respect and empowerment of the people we work alongside. We have been extremely fortunate to engage Gabriel and the team at ThemPra through our Teaching Partnership to deepen our skills and learning around relationship-based practice and social pedagogical approaches. The learning has been fun, powerful and purposeful – an investment that I believe will reap rewards in terms of improving outcomes and experience.’