SOWK13013 - Professional Practice with Children, Youth and Families

Showing: 2026 HE Term 1
General Information

Unit Synopsis

Students should be able to critically analyse the issues and practices for social and welfare workers working with children, young people and families. Participants should be able to explore issues for practice emerging from the multidimensional genesis of child maltreatment and youth at risk with particular relevance to indigenous and other cultural difference. Students should be able to analyse evidence based strategies for appropriate intervention in different contexts. Students will be required to collate feedback on their professional performance from their lecturer and from other sources, evaluate this feedback and include appropriate strategies in their learning agreements for Fieldwork Education 2.

Details

Level Undergraduate
Unit Level 3
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 4
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites

Successful completion of 48 credit points in any course.

Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).

Class Timetable View Unit Timetable
Residential School No Residential School

Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2026

Term 2 - 2026 Profile
Online

Attendance Requirements

All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Written Assessment 40%
2. Written Assessment 60%

This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).

Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades

Past Exams

Previous Feedback

Term 2 - 2022 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 64.71% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 33.33% response rate.

Feedback, Recommendations and Responses

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Source: Have your Say
Feedback:
 More zoom sessions required

Recommendation:
 Consider including more frequent zoom sessions, according to student requirements

Action Taken:
 In response to previous feedback, tutorials were offered in the evenings and more frequently to enhance student participation.
Source: SUTE Unit Comments
Feedback:
 Moodle was very hard to navigate. Weekly tiles for content would have been easier. There were also double ups of information across tiles.

Recommendation:
 The new Moodle set out has been introduced across social work units to improve accessibility and navigation.

Action Taken:
 In Progress
Unit Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  1. Evaluate the historical construction of ideas and practices of working with children, young people and families including the emergence of the notion of the best interests of the child, child focussed and child inclusive practice.
  2. Analyse practice issues relevant to statutory practice with children, young people and families in a range of settings including youth justice, child protection, family law and mental health.
  3. Identify and develop specific skills required to assess harm and risk of harm when working with children, young people and families, including in a statutory context.
  4. Critically evaluate relevant social and welfare practice strategies to support families where there are protective and / or offending issues.
  5. Display the skills of cultural competency including working with indigenous children, young people and families.
  6. Evaluate your performance from feedback drawn from your involvement in professional learning contexts.
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 - Written Assessment • • • • •
2 - Written Assessment • • • • •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 - Communication • • • • • •
2 - Problem Solving • • •
3 - Critical Thinking • • • • • •
4 - Information Literacy • • • •
5 - Team Work • • • •
6 - Information Technology Competence • •
7 - Cross Cultural Competence • • • • •
8 - Ethical practice • • • • • •
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 10
1 - Written Assessment • • • • • • • •
2 - Written Assessment • • • • • •