Alan Smith, Course Director

Alan Smith

Course Director

Alan Smith is an award-winning academic who was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2015. He is Course Director for undergraduate and post-graduate qualifications in youth and community work, as well as a new Degree Apprenticeship for Youth Workers.

Alan leads one of the largest post-graduate youth and community work programmes in the UK. Between 2014 and 2023, he was Vice Chair of the National Youth Agency Education and Training Standards Committee for England, and Co-Chair of the Joint Education and Training Standards Committee for England, Scotland, Wales and All-Ireland. He has been involved in the professional education of youth and community workers for 30 years, and has been at the forefront of policy and practice developments for most of that time, helping guide the profession to its graduate status, developing the guidance for the COVID response, and leading developments in creating a Degree Apprenticeship. Throughout his career, he has been working with others to champion youth and community work as a discipline which changes lives and creates fairer communities.

Alan has held key roles within the Community and Youth Work Training Agencies Group (TAG/PALYCW) – the Professional Association for Lecturers in Youth and Community Work, the Professional, Statutory and Regulatory Body which oversees the validation and approval of all professional youth and community work education in England, and worked with Government and the National Youth Agency to help shape national policy and practice.

Within Leeds Beckett University, Alan has been a member of both Academic Board and the Academic Quality and Standards Committee, and the Youth and Community Work team have won the Golden Robe for Best Course Team three times (2014, 2019 & 2020) and have twice been runner-up - since the categories inception in 2014. He is seconded part-time to the University’s Centre for Learning and Teaching, and co-ordinates the Critical Pedagogy Practitioners network, with Professor Mike Seal (one of our Visiting Professors) and acts as a member of an Advance-HE Expert Reference Group looking at Inclusive Curriculum Design, led by Professor Stella Jones-Devitt (another of our Visiting Professors).

Alan is an experienced reviewer for the Advance-HE National Teaching Fellowship Scheme and the Collaborative Awards for Teaching Excellence scheme.

Current Teaching

As Course Director for the BA (Hons) Youth Work, the Degree Apprenticeship for Youth Workers and the MA Youth Work and Community Development, Alan teaches across all courses and levels. In particular:

  • Historical Perspectives on Youth and Community Work (Level 4)
  • Working in Communities (Level 5)
  • Dissertations (Level 6)
  • Critical Perspectives in Youth and Community Work (Level 7)

Research Interests

Alan has a particular interest in how youth workers conceptualise the idea of youth work, and of youth work as a profession, with a focus on how they develop their professional identity. He has previously written about youth work practice in relation to a number of policy-driven agendas: Connexions, Transforming Youth Work, and Youth Justice / Youth Rights. He has also written about informal education approaches and the relationship with trade union activism.

Alan worked closely with a number of unions, through the General Federation of Trade Unions, to develop and enhance their training offer. He helped design and deliver a Trade Union specific Training the Trainer programme, which is being used as the benchmark for Trade Union Education nationally.

Alan's recent research and publications have focused on Critical Pedagogy in Higher Education, working with Professor Mike Seal and other National Teaching Fellows.

Alan Smith, Course Director

Ask Me About

  1. Youth Work
  2. Critical Pedagogy
  3. Community

Selected Outputs

  • Smith A; Seal M (2020) Key Concepts in Critical Pedagogies. In: Seal M ed. Hopeful Pedagogies in Higher Education: Dancing in the Cracks. London and New York: Bloomsbury,

  • Smith S; Seal M (2019) Teaching Youth Work courses in Universities in the UK : still living with the tensions. In: Seal M ed. Teaching Youth Work in Higher Education: Tensions, Connections, Continuities and Contradictions. Estonia: Tartu Ülikooli Narva Kolledž, pp. 39-51.

  • Smith SA; Smith C; Trelfa J (2017) The development of popular informal and community education, and youth and community work in the UK. In: Seal M ed. Trade Union Education: Transforming the World. Oxford: Workable Books, pp. 64-76.

  • JONES P; SMITH A (2011) Provision for Young People and Rights: Youth Work. In: JONES P; WALKER G ed. Children’s Rights in Practice. Sage Publishing,

  • Smith A; Charura D; Nicholson P (2017) In search of excellence, sharing our experiences of inspirational teaching. In: Teaching Excellence: Building Bridges ANTF Open Conference, 10 May 2017, Leeds Beckett University.

  • Smith SA (2017) How to disseminate good practice in teaching and learning. In: School of Health and Community Studies - Teaching Excellence Conference, 13 February 2017, Leeds.

    http://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/school-of-health-and-community-studies/

  • Smith SA (2016) Moving forward together – trade union education for the future. In: GFTU Union Building Conference, 11 November 2016 - 13 November 2016.

    http://www.gftu.org.uk/

  • Smith SA (2016) Meeting the education and training needs of a professional youth and community work workforce in challenging times: Austerity Britain and the fight to survive. In: Soler P; Bellera J; Planas A eds. Congrés Internacional XXIX Seminari Interuniversitari de Pedagogia Social, 14 September 2016 - 16 September 2016, Girona, Spain.

    http://www.udg.edu/publicacions

  • Smith SA (2016) The Changing Landscape of Higher Education – challenges and opportunities for youth and community work education. In: The UALL Work and Learning Network Annual Conference 2016, 24 June 2016, London.

  • Smith SA (2015) New times, new forms of learning – trade union education for the future. In: GFTU Progressive Summit, 20 November 2015 - 22 November 2015, Yarnfield Park Training and Conference Centre.

  • Smith SA; Griffiths G (2013) The education and training of youth and community workers. In: Confederation of Heads of Young People's Services Annual Conference (CHYPS), 5 July 2013, Manchester.

  • SMITH A (2011) Children's Rights in Practice.

  • SMITH A (2011) Choose Youth - Young People's Services Change Lives.

  • Smith SA (2013) The changing landscape of higher education: challenges and opportunities for youth and community work education. Rapport, The Journal for Playworkers, Community and Youth Workers in Unite the Union

  • Seal M; Smith A (2021) Enabling Critical Pedagogy in Higher Education. Critical Practice in Higher Education.