Child Welfare Practice

Catalog description

This is an introductory course in Child Welfare for social work majors in their junior or senior year. This course focuses on interventions to protect children from neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse by strengthening, supporting and empowering their families. It is organized around four themes: (1) The history, mission, and scope of child welfare services and practice, including the underlying philosophy and values that drive child welfare practice, and addressing cultural and relationship issues when working with families; (2) Conceptual and practical information on identifying child maltreatment, assessing family needs and strengths, and determining the level of risk to children for future maltreatment; (3) Understanding the role of child welfare workers as it relates to developing skills around family assessment, child risk and case planning, and integrating the use of professional authority in these activities. Prerequisites: foundation courses