Personal Values

Working and Learning Together (2004) defines Community Learning and Development (CLD) as “a way of working with communities to increase the skills, confidence, networks and resources they need to tackle problems and grasp opportunities”. CLD brings together adult education, youth work and community capacity building, working with all ages, to help build stronger community and promote lifelong learning. Every CLD worker has their own approach and their own set of values which they follow and implement in the work place. Values can be defined as “principles or standards of behaviour; one 's judgement of what is important in life”. Values are a very personal thing which each individual holds. These values are something which you create yourself,

I inherited my values through my parents as I grew up, with teachers having an influence, until I grew older and started shaping my own values. One value I inherited from my parents is the importance of working and the value of money. Since the age of 13, I’ve always wanted to earn my own money as my parents struggled to provide for me and my brother. From a young age I had a paper round and then going on to work for Avon in order to make my own money. At the age of 16 I had two jobs – one part time, one sessional. Having my own income has allowed me to understand that without employment, it’s difficult to take care of yourself as well as your family and therefore having a job allows you to have a steady income to help look after yourself as well as treat yourself. However, I also understand that despite being employed, it is still possible to fall below the poverty line as some jobs have a very low income, which creates problems for families as they struggle to provide for themselves, despite working full time. Most people who fall below the poverty line are in fact in part-time or full time work, however do not earn enough to look after themselves or their families. (Giddens, 2013) One thing I fully support and have done some campaign work on is the Living Wage campaign, I believe this should be implemented as I feel it is unfair

Neoliberalism creates the idea of the working poor to a certain extent, where low paid employment is the only options for certain sections of society, this leads to poverty which the state then has to subsidise through benefits. Whereas it could be seen that Functionalism, may support the re-nationalising of major industries, where the state would be in control and this would provide employment, living wages and good working