The School of Children, Young People and Families provide specialist support and expertise to develop professionals who have the requisite knowledge, skills and experience to improve outcomes for children, young people and families across the communities they live and work.
Welcome to the School of Children, Young People and Families
Welcome to the School of Children, Young People and Families where we are focused on being a positive force to change society. As a School, we are grounded in understanding child development and exploring approaches that make a lifelong impact on children and their families. We do this by creating a culture of care where your sense of belonging as a member of this School is just as important as the sense of wellbeing you inspire in children and families.
Within the School, we offer a range of programmes that evolve around understanding the lives of children, how best to support their development, and making impactful interventions when families face difficulties. Our modules consider practical interventions that support children’s happiness, mitigate the risks of health inequalities, or support special educational needs and disabilities. All our programmes are career-focused, supporting you to explore the vast number of professional roles available when within children and families, or enhancing your career further within this meaningful profession.
There is a strong emphasis on social justice throughout our programmes, learning how to change the lives of children and families and rebalance inequalities. This can be within impactful interventions for supporting mental health, anti-social behaviour, or early communication and language skills. We consider trauma-informed practice to support social and emotional wellbeing and embrace meaningful reflective practice to support your professional wellbeing.
Alongside these programmes we also have our philosophy, ethics and religion programme. Modules cover a diversity of topics and perspectives whilst examining issues of both pressing contemporary and perennial importance. Our philosophy modules explore the nature of reality, the existence of God, what it means to be human, and much more besides. Our ethics modules will teach you how to think about complicated real-world issues in a thoughtful, rigorous, and compassionate way. Finally, our religion modules will help you to understand what people believe, why they believe it, the important role that religion can play in people’s lives, and how it shapes decision-making at both a personal and societal level helping you to better understand, and change, contemporary society and the modern world.
You’ll be inspired to explore a range of professional roles, and studying programmes that open doors across a variety of exciting careers. Modules are dynamic and co-created, with rich teaching and learning sessions that research-active tutors and local employers inform. As a School, we provide a genuine commitment to your development, raising confidence and academic achievement simultaneously. Joining us can help you become a positive force to change society.
Our achievements
5th in the UK and 1st in Yorkshire for ‘learning resources’ among universities in the UK included for Social Policy.
National Student Survey (NSS) 2024
Top 10 in the UK and 1st in Yorkshire for ‘assessment and feedback’ among universities in the UK included for Social Policy.
National Student Survey (NSS) 2024
Top 15 in the UK and 1st in Yorkshire for ‘Student Voice’ among universities in the UK included for Social Policy.
National Student Survey (NSS) 2024
96% of Leeds Trinity University graduates are in employment or further study within 15 months.
Graduate Outcomes, Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) published 2024
Leeds Trinity University is top in Yorkshire and top 10 in the UK for ‘satisfaction with teaching’.
The School of Children, Young People and Families at Leeds Trinity University has a long history of providing students with opportunities to enhance their professional development. One opportunity we offer our students is the Early Childhood Studies Graduate Practitioner Competencies, which is an additional award running in parallel with the BA Early Childhood Studies degree and BA Professional Practice: Early Childhood Studies degree.
The Graduate Practitioner Competencies are endorsed by the Early Childhood Studies Degree Network (ECSDN), to which Leeds Trinity University is a member institute. The competencies aim to strengthen the degree's early childhood workforce and professional practice aspect. Gaining the competencies award enables students to gain a full and relevant status and a level 6 qualification. Leeds Trinity is the only university in Leeds to offer this Ofsted requirement.
Achieving practitioner status can help enhance your employability in the childhood studies sector or support you in progressing to postgraduate study or higher-level professional roles.
Early Childhood Studies Degrees Network
A School with connections
The School of Children, Young People and Families has many connections with local organisations and charities. Below are just some of the partners we work closely with.
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Barca Leeds
We work in partnership with Barca to raise awareness of the barriers that individuals face in society to help them to fulfill their potential. From offering student placement opportunities to the development of specific projects, we support the valuable work of the charity in promoting economic and social wellbeing.
We work in partnership with Behind Closed Doors to raise awareness of domestic abuse and its impact on individuals and families, offering professional placement opportunities across our programmes.
We've partnered with Best Childcare Nursery to form a collaborative partnership for progress, aiming to deliver sustainability and success in Early Years together.
Leeds Trinity works with Leeds Learning Alliance to support the current and future outcomes of children, young people and their families across Leeds City and the wider region.
Working in partnership with Wellingtons Nursery, we promote high-quality early years practice, supporting professional placement opportunities, and helping students achieve their ‘full and relevant’ qualifications.
Zarach works closely with the School of Children, Young People and Families to raise awareness of the impacts of bed poverty for children, young people and their families.
Our alumni have been making an impact since we opened our doors in 1966. Read more about our exceptional graduated and how they got to where they are today.
Becca Haigh - Owner of Wildling Adventures
"The progress that the children make is quite unbelievable. There is not a day at work where my heart does not sing."
Matthew Brannen, Senior Policy Adviser at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
"I had some really great times at Leeds Trinity, with friends and classmates; work colleagues too! I spent lots of time building up the Catholic Society, working with the chaplaincy and getting involved in things going on in Leeds."
"The staff are so supportive and go above and beyond to help you, from the lecturers to the kitchen staff. Everybody at Leeds Trinity adds value to your experience."
Victoria Smith - Director of Operations, York Childcare
"My MA really opened my eyes to the wider issues we face in the sector such as diversity, our understanding of the sociological impacts on young children and the varying range of pedagogy and approaches."
The School comprises academics and researchers within ‘Children, Young People and Families’ or our ‘Philosophy, Ethics and Religion’ provision. The School's research portfolio is varied and underpinned by regional, national or international partnerships and collaborations with corresponding reach and significance.
Research themes
Social inclusion and wellbeing
The theme of social inclusion and wellbeing underpins much of the research within Children, Young People and Families.
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Social inclusion and wellbeing
Topics include:
Special educational needs and disabilities
Childhood and adolescent mental health
Gender debates within employment and employability
Young parents in higher education
Teachers’ professional knowledge about poverty and disadvantage
Child protection for the disadvantaged and vulnerable
Experiences of play therapy
Care experienced young people
Educational inequalities
The experiences of BAME and marginalised British families during lockdown
Domestic abuse
Gender and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.
Philosophy, Ethics and Religion
Topics such as metaphysics; causation; moral theology; social justice; theology of indigenous religion; contemporary paganism; Christian theology; ecofeminism; and religious education are explored within Philosophy, Ethics and Religion.
The Catherine of Alexandria Research Group
Academic Leads
Dr Richard Playford: Philosophical anthropology and exophilosophy (i.e., the philosophy of extraterrestrial life)
Dr Dave Ellis: Wittgensteinian scholarship predominantly in philosophy of religion
Dr Suzanne Owen: Specialism in Indigenous religious traditions and British nature-based traditions.
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The Catherine of Alexandria Research Group
We harness and develop the expertise, skills, talents and potential of colleagues with shared interests in philosophy and religion.
Sub-themes running through the Research Group include:
Catholic Philosophy
The distinctive contributions British Catholics have made to philosophy
The insights Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy can provide to contemporary issues
Philosophy in Society and Culture
The insights philosophy can provide on matters of social justice, equity and equality
The different ways we can promote a philosophically literate society
The different ways philosophy can be used to promote the common good
School of Children, Young People and Families blogs
Blog post: Philosophy, Theology, Religion and Ethics, Research