It will be apparent from a quick look at the Contents of this issue of the Webmag that much of the basic descriptive material about social pedagogy has been made available by Thempra. Both Sylvia Holthoff and Gabriel Eichsteller are directors of this community interest company, whose full name is ThemPra Social Pedagogy. We therefore asked them to provide a brief description of their company and what it does.
The name stands for a strong connection between theory and practice of social pedagogy. In our understanding, theory meets practice for one single purpose: we believe that children and young people deserve the best and we are dedicated to improving their life experiences through holistic and child-centred services.
ThemPra’s way of contributing is through the promotion and sustainable implementation of social pedagogy in social organisations – through personal and professional development courses, capacity-building and projects – with the aim to encourage practitioners and organisations to explore the relevance of social pedagogy for their specific working field.
We feel that social pedagogy offers a coherent framework, allowing practitioners to make best use of their professional, personal and practical expertise. As various research studies prove, this has a strong positive impact on improving children and young people’s wellbeing and personal and social development.
We see our main activities in designing and delivering personal and professional development courses and in developing projects which create holistic learning space to explore the dimension of a social pedagogic approach in social services throughout the UK. In order to promote social pedagogy nationally, we are also working in partnership with organisations that share our aims, in particular the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care and FICE-England.
To learn more visit their website at www.thempra.org.uk.