EMJM FLOURISH contains a curriculum of 120 ECTS spread over 4 full time semesters of 30 ECTS each. These include a number of compulsory taught study units, elective taught study units, a practice placement/internship, a dissertation, and an optional (zero credit) summer school. It incorporates the latest developments in the theory, research and practice of resilience in educational contexts, exposing students to a broad based, evidence informed, and multidisciplinary study of the field. The programme is informed by a systemic perspective to resilience, putting particular emphasis on how educational communities, in collaboration with families and other partners, may operate as resilience enhancing, inclusive social systems.

In the FIRST SEMESTER, there will be a critical evaluation of the main theories of resilience in children and young people, the risk and protective factors for children and young people from marginalised contexts and the application of protective factors to promote resilience and wellbeing in different cultural contexts. Course participants will also be able to identify the key factors that influence programme implementation quality, adaptation to different contexts, and the practical use of experiential, collaborative and culturally responsive approaches in resilience education. There will be also a critical evaluation of the evidence on the effectiveness of resilience programmes for children and young people. Course participants will also choose from elective study units on systemic approaches to resilience, particularly the role of the family, and how to adopt culturally responsive resilience interventions and practices.

In the SECOND SEMESTER there will be a particular focus on the systemic and contextual processes underlying resilience, with a critical examination on how to create educational systems which promote academic and social-emotional resilience and wellbeing for all children in culturally responsive ways. The second semester also prepares students to engage in researching resilience with children and young people, addressing quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection and analysis as well as ethical issues when engaging in research and practice. This will be serve as preparation for the dissertation in semester 4. Course participants will also choose from elective study units on resilience in the early years and selected topics in the application of resilience in education.

In the more practice-based THIRD SEMESTER, course participants will be able to reflect on their own resilience and wellbeing and develop key competences in personal and social development. In the practice placement, they will observe educators and practitioners working with children and young people, and receive specialised training by professionals on crisis management and how to support the resilience of children and young people suffering from trauma. In the second part of the placement they will engage in a number of set tasks on how to put into practice the competences they have developed in the first two semesters, including universal programme implementation, targeted interventions, and working at systems level. Depending on their mobility, students will choose from a number of elective study units, including building supportive networks in promoting resilience, the application of positive psychology in education, mind and body practices in schools, behaviour management and change in schools, and project management and entrepreneurship.

In the FOURTH SEMESTER, students will focus exclusively on the dissertation, where they will have the opportunity to apply the scientific approach to the study of a professional practice issue through primary data collection and analysis and the presentation of a 15,000 words dissertation. Students may do the fourth semester at one of the four Universities. The dissertation can be done independently, online, blended and face to face.

PROGRAMME OF STUDIES

In the SUMMER TERM between the first and second year of the programme, students will also have the opportunity to attend an optional SUMMER SCHOOL in South Africa observing various schools and services, besides attending a number of workshops.