Alternative Practice: A Guide for Youth Worker Apprentices

As part of your Level 6 Youth Worker Degree Apprenticeship, you'll complete at least 160 hours of alternative practice.

This gives you the opportunity to step outside your usual role and experience a different aspect of youth work.

Your usual role provides valuable experience, but professional development also comes from seeing different approaches, settings and groups of young people.

Explore National Youth Agency – Standards and Resources as you consider different youth work contexts and professional development.

Why complete alternative practice?

Alternative practice can help you:

• Broaden your experience
• Understand different youth work contexts
• Develop new skills
• Challenge your assumptions
• Work with different groups of young people
• Understand different approaches to service delivery
• Develop your professional network
• Apply your academic learning in new contexts

What could alternative practice involve?

Your alternative practice could include working with:

• A different age group
• A different community
• A different demographic
• A different youth work setting
• A different team or department
• A different type of youth work provision

You could also gain experience through activities such as:

• Detached or outreach work
• Advocacy
• Community projects
• Participation projects
• Policy work
• Programme development
• Partnership work
• Different forms of youth provision

The important thing is that the experience provides new learning and meaningful professional development.

Plan your alternative practice carefully

Alternative practice should not simply be a change of location.

Before you begin, think about:

• What do I want to learn?
• What is different about this setting?
• Which skills do I want to develop?
• Which apprenticeship standards could this help me evidence?
• What will I reflect on afterwards?

Your Professional Learning Mentor can help you plan your alternative practice and consider how it can support your development throughout the apprenticeship.

Keep evidence of your learning

Make sure you record your experience and reflect on what you learned.

Consider:

What was different?

What did I learn?

How did it challenge my thinking?

What will I take back into my usual practice?

Alternative practice is an opportunity to broaden your professional perspective and become a more adaptable youth worker.