Clinical Social Work Practice Across the Lifespan 2

Catalog description

This foundation practice course is the second in a two-course sequence designed to provide M.S.W. students with foundational knowledge, values, and skills in social work practice with families, groups, organizations, and communities. In the first course, the emphasis was on the development of practice knowledge and skills in the areas of engagement, assessment, goal setting, contracting, intervention and evaluation with individuals. In the second course, students further develop this knowledge and skill base and learn about its use in working with families, groups, organizations, and communities. Attention to the implications of race, culture, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic background, age, sexual orientation, religion, and disabilities in social work practice continues to be an integral part of foundation practice learning. Students learn about how core professional values, including a commitment to social change to meet socially recognized needs, respect and appreciation for individual and group differences, and promotion of social justice and economic, physical, and mental well-being of all in society, apply to practice with larger systems. Through the use of assigned readings and discussion posts, emphasis is placed on principles of ethical practice, cultural awareness in practice, and the promotion of access to services for people with the greatest social and economic needs. Throughout the course, the impact of inequality and oppression in the provision of services with families, groups, communities, and organizations and in the dynamics of practice settings is explored, and students develop an awareness of the impact of difference and diversity in assessment and ongoing social work practice with families, groups, organizations, and communities. Students learn the unique role that families, groups, organizations, and communities work to play in the continuum of social work practice methodologies. In addition, they learn to apply a strengths perspective in social work practice occurring in the family, group, organizational, and community settings, with an emphasis on vulnerable and marginalized populations. The themes of practicing from a person-in-environment and a strength-based perspective are continued in this course. Students study how practice with groups can, directly and indirectly, promote social and economic justice. Particular emphasis is placed on selecting interventions that have been shown, through empirical evidence, to be effective. Students also gain an understanding of how to provide culturally sensitive practice and critically analyze ethical dilemmas that arise in social work practice with groups.