Social entrepreneurship in the social policy curriculum

This paper describes the development of a teaching module that introduces social policy students to the skills required to develop and manage a welfare organisation. The module addresses the setting up, managing and funding of a welfare organisation and how skills such as social entrepreneurship, community profiling, business planning and human resource development can be used to achieve these tasks. The paper explores the political and educational context which inspired this initiative and the theoretical basis for the approach used. A particular focus is placed on the entrepreneurial aspects of the development. It also describes the delivery of the module to the first cohort of students and includes their assessment of the learning and an evaluation of how they performed the assessment task. The paper then evaluates the place of this type of approach in higher education and offers proposals for its subsequent development based on the authors’ experience so far