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What You’ll Gain As An Learner
Through expert teaching, quality resources and ongoing support from industry professionals, you will gain the skills, knowledge and behaviours needed to work with children, young people and families across community settings, including education, youth services, youth justice and special educational needs. With nearly 20 years of training expertise and a 99% learner success rate, we are your trusted partner in supporting your career growth and helping you empower young lives.
What You’ll Gain As An Employer
Your success is our priority. We provide expert teaching through quality resources and ongoing support to take your staff to the next level as they progress in their childcare career, learning how to provide expert guidance to children, young people and their families in community settings. With nearly 20 years of training expertise and a 99% learner success rate, leave the teaching to us as we support the next generation of teaching professionals on their journey to empowering the lives of children and young people.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Level 4 Children, Young People and Families Practitioner (Community) apprenticeship prepares you to support children, young people and families across community-based services, including education, youth services, early years, family support across community-based services. The programme develops the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed to help individuals achieve positive outcomes and sustainable solutions in their daily lives. On completion, you’ll also gain a Level 4 Certificate in Higher Education in Working with Children, Young People and Families.
This apprenticeship is a great choice if you’re already working with children, young people or families in a community setting and want to develop your professional skills further. If you’re passionate about supporting individuals and helping families access the right services, this programme can help you strengthen your knowledge of safeguarding, development and multi-agency working whilst making a real difference to young people’s lives.
You’ll usually need to be working in a relevant role that supports children, young people or families. This could include positions in education, youth services, early years, family support or special educational needs. Being in a suitable job role ensures you can apply what you learn directly to your work and meet the programme requirements while developing your practical skills and knowledge.
During this apprenticeship, you’ll build the knowledge and skills needed to support children, young people and families effectively in community settings. You’ll explore areas such as safeguarding, human growth and development, communication, observation and early intervention. You’ll also learn how to work with multiple agencies, identify risks and provide appropriate support. The programme also includes modules on professional practice, child study and safe practice to help you develop a well-rounded understanding of working in this sector.
Once you’ve completed the Level 4 apprenticeship, you can continue to build your skills and progress your career within residential childcare and wider social care settings. A natural next step is to advance onto our Level 5 Children, Young People & Families Manager (Community Pathway) apprenticeship.
This apprenticeship is a good choice if you are a deputy manager, manager or senior practitioner in a community-based service. If you’re responsible for leading teams, supporting families and improving service delivery, this programme can help you strengthen your leadership skills and progress your career. It’s particularly suited to those working in areas such as fostering, adoption or family support services.
The apprenticeship typically lasts around 18 months. During this time, you’ll complete a mix of face-to-face and online learning alongside your job role. Apprentices must also complete a minimum of six hours per week of off-the-job training, which may include online teaching, digital resources, workplace assessments and one-to-one support.
Off-the-job training is structured learning that takes place during your paid working hours but is separate from your normal day-to-day duties. You’re required to complete a minimum of six hours per week of this training to develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed for your apprenticeship. Activities can include online learning, workshops, research, mentoring and other development tasks relevant to your role.
You can also use our Learner Enrichment Calendar to help plan and log suitable off-the-job activities that count towards your training hours, giving you a variety of ways to grow your skills throughout the programme.
All off-the-job training hours must be recorded on your e-portfolio system, Aptem, to ensure your progress is tracked throughout your apprenticeship.
For the learner, there is no cost.
For employers, the cost depends on whether you pay the apprenticeship levy:
- Levy-paying employers: You can use your apprenticeship levy funds to cover the full cost of the programme. These funds are accessed through your digital apprenticeship service account.
- Non-levy employers: The government will fund 95% of the training cost, meaning you only pay the remaining 5%. Based on the £6,000 funding band, this equates to just £300.
This makes apprenticeships a highly cost-effective way to develop your workforce, with the majority of training costs covered through government support.
