Program Overview

Unit Overview

The unit LCRM304 Community Engagement enables Criminology students to apply theoretical learning in professional workplace settings. This unit provides intensive preparation in workplace practices and expectations, including occupational roles, professional boundaries, work health and safety, anti-discrimination, bullying, codes of conduct, and performance evaluation.

Unit Details

• Unit Code: LCRM304
• Unit Name: Community Engagement
• Credit Points: 10
• Year: 2026
• Locations: Brisbane, Blacktown, Melbourne, North Sydney

Learning Outcomes

To successfully complete this unit, students will be able to demonstrate the following learning outcomes:

1. Recognise workplace customs
2. Solve problems in the workplace
3. Reflect upon and evaluate self-performance in the workplace

Unit Content

Topics will include:

• Workplaces in the criminal justice sector
• Occupational roles and boundaries in the criminal justice sector
• Service-learning and clinical education: understanding the purpose of a placement
• Regulation in the workplace: work, health and safety laws
• Regulation in the workplace: anti-discrimination and understanding cultural safety
• Regulation in the workplace: code of conduct
• Performance evaluation in the workplace
• What is a reflective practitioner and how do I become one?
• How to keep an effective reflective journal
• Evaluating your placement

Assessment Strategy

The assessment tasks have been explicitly created to address the identified Learning Outcomes for this unit. Students will be required to complete three assessment tasks:

1. Short Answer Task: Requires students to demonstrate their ability to prepare a brief description of their workplace and its work, and demonstrate understanding of the services that workplace provides, the people to which those services are provided, and the issues they might face. (Weighting: 30%)
2. Graded Hurdle Exam: Requires students to demonstrate critical thinking skills and understanding materials. Students must achieve at least 20 marks out of 30 in order to pass this hurdle assessment. (Weighting: 30%)
3. Reflective Journal: Requires students to demonstrate understanding of the purpose of critical reflection. (Weighting: 40%)

Learning and Teaching Strategy

The learning and teaching strategy in this unit is in three phases: intensive preparation for a workplace placement, the placement itself, and a workplace-based reflective exercise used as a tool for 'de-briefing' through which students gain increased self-awareness of their ability to apply their course-work learnings to the workplace.

Placement Details

• Placement Hours: 80 hours
• Placement Location: Within the criminal justice sector or in organisations that provide services to, or conduct research with, individuals who have encountered the criminal justice system.

Prerequisites

• LCRM207 Corrections and Rehabilitation of Offenders

Representative Texts and References

• Cleak and Wilson, Making the Most of a Field Placement, 2018.
• Dal Pont, GE, Wolski, B., Macdonald, R. and Clark-Dickson, D., Lawyers: Roles, Skills and Responsibilities (Thomson Reuters, 3rd Edition, 2016)
• Schwabel, D., How to Make the Most out of Internships (2011)