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CYP boosts certificate course

29 January 2004

CYP Centre
The CYP’s Caribbean Centre, based in Georgetown, Guyana
The Commonwealth Youth Programme (CYP) is reviewing its Certificate Course for Youth Work in the Caribbean region.

 The course is designed to enable participants to acquire basic techniques for effective youth work. Delivered via distance education, it can be completed within a period of nine months, including two residential components lasting three days each and a one-week practical placement.

The CYP’s Caribbean Centre, based in Georgetown, Guyana, organised a workshop in Antigua and Barbudaon 14-18 January 2004 to review the curriculum and design of the course. Among other objectives, the workshop concentrated on updating course content, establishing occupational standards for the youth work profession in the region, and situating the Certificate course as part of a continuum of training for youth work. 

 “While there are many institutions and agencies offering youth work education and training, the Commonwealth Youth Programme is the only agency working towards building the profession of youth work as a discrete academic and professional discipline,” said Armstrong Alexis, Regional Director of the Caribbean Centre. “This is a niche area for CYP. No other agency provides training, develops materials and a body of knowledge, as well as working towards forging a career path for youth work.”

 The revision of the course seeks to attain a number of benefits, including the sharing of best practice in youth work, improved performance, standardised training and assessment, skills recognition, the provision of portable credentials, the establishment of common definitions, the documentation of current and emerging trends, clearly defined human relations, the entrenchment of health, safety and technical practices, improved articulation and credit transfer, and consensus-building.

 Attending the workshop were officials from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbadosand Jamaica, as well as CYP staff from Georgetownand London, UK.

In 1978, the Caribbean regional office became the first of the CYP Regional Centres to introduce a Certificate level course in youth work. It began as a correspondence course but has since been revised and upgraded for delivery via distance learning. It is now also being offered through the CYP’s South Pacific Centre temporarily located in Brisbane, Australia.  

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