What will we learn?

We will start our course by considering the concepts of vulnerability, risk and good enough parenting. After completing this week, you should begin to be familiar with:

• The circumstances that cause young people to be defined as vulnerable and in need of services/care and protection.
• The complexity of assessing ‘good enough parenting’.
• The subjective and cultural nature of care.
• The complexity of assessing risk and vulnerability.
• The links between risk and poverty.

To achieve this you will watch two talks which introduce and begin to explain how we define, understand and assess vulnerability and risk. You will read about good enough parenting, the relationship between poverty and risk and the role in the media in shaping attitudes towards risk. You will also engage in an exercise where you rank different scenarios in terms of risk, reflecting upon the factors which cause you to come to your conclusions.