In this chapter, we present a model grounded in the strengths approach which critiques the assumptions about how students learn in practice. We provide a framework for identifying and affirming organisations like START that offer a potentially transformative environment for learning. The framework is substantiated by previously unpublished research funded through a university teaching fellowship, undertaken with 14 pioneer students from the first two years of START's life examining how students learned in that unconventional setting. Findings from this study are considered in the context of theorising about the strengths approach, extended by the experience of working with learners from diverse professional courses and international students. Fundamental to this approach are concepts of the learning organisation (Social Care Institute for Excellence, 2008) and communities of practice (Wenger, 1998).

We know beyond doubt that students are capable of achieving the impossible – simply because they do not know that it is. We have seen them apply their passion for social justice and their life experience successfully to situations that might have discouraged an experienced worker. In educating students for the challenges of the future we want them to bring everything they know from their lives so far. Similarly, refugees, or indeed anyone seeking help, need to be able to draw on everything they know to create the potential for transformation. It is essential for the continued health of the organisation that its two components – service to refugees, and student learning – are held in balance at all times. Emphasis on the interconnection of theory and practice safeguards a learning environment where no one is ‘the expert’ and everyone is ‘an expert’ whose contribution is essential. Mutuality is at the core of the strengths approach.

Traditionally, students have learned to practise through placements, whereby a professional practitioner supervises them and gradually passes on their expertise. These apprenticeship models of professional learning can only equip professionals for a future similar to the present. Inevitable changes resulting from the climate emergency, scarcity of natural resources, demographic shifts, global conflicts and their consequences for human populations make that form of future very unlikely.