Core Concepts in Child and Adolescent Trauma

Catalog description

Description: This course will prepare MSW students for trauma-informed evidence-based practice by enhancing students' empathic understanding of trauma from the child's perspective and how trauma influences the child's life. The course focus is on the impact of trauma on the child and family provides a foundation for assessment, crisis intervention, and intervention. The curriculum is based on twelve guiding core concepts developed about trauma and utilizes a problem-based learning approach, in which in-depth case studies about the impact of trauma are presented so that students experience "real" cases as they actually unfold in practice. The cases focus on children and adolescents, aged 18 months to 17 years, from a variety of ethnic and racial groups representing urban, suburban and rural environments and illustrate a number of different trauma types, including interpersonal trauma such as physical, emotional and sexual abuse, and witness to both stranger and domestic violence. The Problem-Based Learning approach used in this course involves students in active, collaborative, team-oriented self-directed learning.