This course is designed to increase understanding, knowledge, and skills regarding social, racial, economic, and environmental justice. Designated social work practice theoretical frameworks regarding diversity are applied to explain the interaction in the social systems of the intersectionality of multiple factors including race, color, ethnicity, age, gender, gender identity and expression, immigration status, culture, disability, political ideology, religion, sex, and sexual orientation. The course also focuses on the relationship between diversity issues in these larger social systems. The aspects of communities and organizations will also be explored through a variety of applications, including systems theory and the ecological approach, with emphasis on such aspects of the community as community power, human ecology, and conflict. Social systems will be compared and contrasted with the ecological, power, and conflict positions. Systems theory will also be applied to the aspects of society with emphasis on diversity, racism, feminism, and populations-at-risk. ADEI engagement in social work practice is discussed throughout the course.
This course teaches students about the types of social work careers, and the nature, purpose, function, and organizational content of the profession. The historical development of social work and social welfare institutions; the development of social welfare policies and their impact on social work practice, the values and ethics of the profession, and the role of the social work profession as a change agent from an ADEI perspective are addressed. Case examples of social work intervention are utilized. Prerequisites: SW 500; Co-requisites: SW 503, SW 505, and SW 507
Provides the foundation for professional social work practice with individuals, families, and groups. Course content includes the functions, roles, skills, conceptual framework, values, and ethics involved in a generalist approach. Through practice lenses of engagement, assessment, intervention, and evaluation, the following areas are addressed: building rapport and developing professional relationships with diverse clients, defining problems, incorporating appropriate and best-known research evidence to date, using observation to monitor and evaluate progress, and assessing readiness for termination. A variety of practice approaches will be explored including ADEI and multi-systemic/socio-cultural understandings of individuals and social issues, inclusive strengths and empowerment strategies, human rights perspectives, behavioral and developmental approaches, and ethical and multicultural competencies. Prerequisites: SW 500. Co-requisites: SW 501; SW 505; SW 507
This course will explore the dynamics of human behavior in the environment to prepare a foundation of knowledge on which to build clinical social work skills from an ADEI perspective. Special attention is given to developing an evidenced-based research understanding of individual and family behavior and development over the course of the life span as a function of reciprocal interactions with groups, communities, organizations, and society from a bio-psychosocial, cultural, and spiritual perspective. A variety of theories are utilized to assist in understanding the complexity of human behavior, including psychodynamic, psychosocial, family systems, cognitive, and neurobiological theories, among others. Course content is sensitive to human diversity, including race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical challenges, spirituality, and socioeconomic factors as they affect human behavior and lifespan development. Students will assess ADEI systemic issues that can impact strengths, challenges, risk, resilience and protective factors that affect clients’ social functioning through the examination of human behavior in the environment with attention to structural factors (e.g., poverty, racism, gender issues, aging) that contribute to challenge and success in human development. The impact of trauma, loss, and environmental stressors on the individual and the family are also explored. Prerequisites:SW 500. Co-requisites:SW 501;SW503;SW507
Practicum and Integrative Seminar I is the first of two required generalist practicum and seminar courses. The field practicum is an educationally directed experience under the supervision of an agency-based social work practicum instructor and a campus-based faculty practicum director. The integrative seminar component addresses the practicum experience and assists students in the integration and application of practice theory to their practicum placement learning activities. The second course of the two-semester sequence, Practicum and Integrative Seminar II (SW 508), is taught in the second semester of the generalist year. Students complete a minimum of 450 hours during SW 507 and SW 508. Prerequisites: SW 500. Co-requisites: SW 501, SW 503, and SW 505
This course introduces students to human rights and social justice perspectives in order to examine the shifting landscape of diversity, oppression, power, and privilege, and how this affects social work ADEI practice from a human behavior in the environment perspective. The fundamental goal of the course is for students to develop critical consciousness in order to gain competencies to address diversity, privilege, racism, and oppression in social work practice. The importance of power and the dynamics of domination and subordination in multiple manifestations of oppression, particularly among historically oppressed groups, will be explored. An understanding of these concepts integrated with an understanding of one’s self within these systems is essential for social work practice.
This course is a clinical theory and practice course taught in the first semester of a two-semester sequence designed to prepare students to provide social work clinical practice services and to supervise delivery of those services to couples, families, and groups. It builds on the generalist practice year and advances knowledge by focusing upon the therapeutic relationship as the framework for developing interviewing, assessment, and intervention skills appropriate with diverse client situations and supported by empirical research. Assessment and treatment principles from various interpersonal, psychodynamic, group, and cognitive-behavioral theories and approaches are explored. The course focuses on advanced clinical social work, clinical and client advocacy skills, and techniques at each stage of the helping process, and with clinical practice situations as these apply to individuals, client groups, couples, and family systems with an emphasis on the assessment and diagnosis of clients across the lifespan, the development of a treatment plan, the therapeutic relationship, the treatment process, and clinical practice with clients from diverse backgrounds, including ethnic, racial, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds. An ADEI perspective is applied. Prerequisites: SW 600. Co-requisites: SW 603 and SW 605
This clinical social work specialization course provides an integrative seminar and supervised advanced learning and practice of clinical social work services. Students are placed in practice-settings conducive to clinical social work practice under the supervision of an agency-based social work supervisor and a campus-based faculty practicum director. Special emphasis is placed on providing students with the basis for continued development of culturally competent ADEI clinical social work practice. The integrative seminar component addresses the practicum experience and assists students in the integration and application of practice theory and further refinement of social work skills, including assessment, interventions, and group practice, to their practicum placement learning activities. The second course of the two-semester sequence, Practicum and Integrative Seminar IV- Clinical Practice (SW 604), is taught in the second semester of the clinical social work specialization year. Students complete a minimum of 450 hours during the two-semester sequence, SW 603 and SW 604. Prerequisites: SW 600. Co-requisites: SW 601 and SW 605
This course explores major forms of clinical mental health issues and psychopathology in adults, children, and adolescents, including classification trends, issues, and models. The course provides an introduction to clinical syndromes in terms of diagnostic methodology, research and social concerns and their implications for at-risk groups and familiarizes social work students with the major mental disorders and psychopathologies acquainted with the language, taxonomy, conceptualizations, and dynamics and developments in the study of clinical mental health assessment and differential diagnoses. Discussed are the bio-psychosocial, cultural, and spiritual variables influencing behavior in the environment so that students will gain a theoretical foundation for understanding and assessing mental health and mental health diagnoses. The impact of diversity, social justice, racism, and social determinants of health on behavioral and mental health will be explored. Particular emphasis will be given to the complexity of mental health, and to the use and practical limitations of diagnostic systems, including the DSM-5-TR. Prerequisites: SW 600. Co-requisites: SW 601 and SW 603
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