Values and professional development programmes: embedding humanity and empathy in community education training in a Scottish university

This presentation reports on the findings of a study exploring the role of values in professional community education qualifying courses taught within a School of Education and Social Work at a Scottish university. It aims to enhance understanding of the way in which these courses draw on values-based teaching to incorporate professional values laid out in formal Standards by external professional bodies, relating specifically to the undergraduate and postgraduate Community Education degree programmes, concentrating in particular upon the values highlighted in this year’s conference themes of humanity and empathy. Community Development is a values-based form of practice, which places a commitment to humanity at the core of our work with the most marginalized, disadvantaged and oppressed groups in society. In Scotland, professional status as a community development practitioner is attained through participation in university-based degree programmes. These programmes are shaped around the values promoted by the professional bodies that endorse them (e.g. CLD Standards Council for Scotland).