Community Mental Health Practice

Catalog description

This course introduces students to definitions, historical developments and factors in the social environment that have shaped understanding of mental illness in the United States and the responses of policy makers and practitioners to address community mental health needs. Service delivery approaches, ranging from those that focus on risk reduction, recovery and community integration/inclusion to those that focus on responding to public behavior and social control, are considered from the perspective of social work values and ethical principles. Students will be challenged to ponder questions of self-determination, social responsibility, justice, and the dignity and worth of persons in life situations that include the experience and impacts of mental illness.