Professional Assessment and Helping Skills

Catalog description

This is the child and family studies capstone course in the assessment of children, individuals, couples and families, and the acquisition of helping skills needed to facilitate these processes; all necessary in preparing students for their final internship experience. It is designed to help students acquire practical helping skills, techniques, and theoretical foundations that define and support assessment and effective helping relationships for human services professionals working in a wide range of settings. Highly experiential in nature and includes multiple opportunities for practice, demonstration, and discussion of methods and techniques drawn from the text, lectures, and supplemental materials. It also includes an introduction to group process. Specific emphasis is placed on integrating previous and concurrent course content and experiences, and bringing an enhanced level of skill to the helping relationship. Additional considerations include an emphasis on a student’s personal beliefs, values, and spirituality and their impact on the helping process and developing an awareness of multicultural issues and other significant topics that impact the helping relationship, such as ethics, gender, race, religion, disability, ageism, and sexual orientation.