Claire Cameron. 
Driving through a wood, late at night, a streetwise 17-year-old becomes panicky as her mobile signal dies. John, her foster carer, knows she is entering her panic zone, turns the car around and sees the girl’s face relax as signs of more familiar urban environment reappear and she returns to her comfort zone. ‘Knowing that once she was in a panic zone and there was no longer any learning for her, was down to my learning on the social pedagogy diploma course I did’, he says.
Social pedagogy combines a holistic approach to care and education practice and utilises theories from psychology, education, sociology and anthropology to create a unique, empathic, democratically oriented relationship-based profession. John was a learner on the Crossfields Institute Diploma in Social Pedagogy, which was developed in collaboration with the Scaling Up Social Pedagogy project based at the IOE’s Thomas Coram Research Unit (TCRU).
The Diploma focuses on applying theories in practice with a high degree of critical (more…)