Clinical Social Work Practice Across the Lifespan 1

Catalog description

This course will provide students with foundational concepts, knowledge, values, and skills in clinical social work practice with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. In the first semester, the course emphasis is on the development of foundational concepts, practice knowledge, and competence for work with individuals. An introduction to generalist social work principles emphasizing a systems perspective, the continuum of service delivery levels and modalities, and a commitment to underserved and vulnerable populations. The course content is focused on teaching basic practice skills; students are exposed simultaneously to the theory, research, and necessary skills required to work with individuals, and families in the engagement, assessment, intervention, termination, and evaluation phases of treatment. The person-in-environment and systems approach to practice is emphasized, highlighting the necessity for multilevel intervention. Course content includes micro and mezzo social systems thinking applied to the assessment of socio-structural institutions and organizations as well as change strategies and fundamentals of group and community organizational practice, with an emphasis on multi-cultural and anti-oppression perspectives in clinical social work practice. The importance of research to social work practice is introduced as it applies to the understanding of client problems and the choice and effectiveness of an intervention. In addition, knowledge of professional identity, the profession's ethical standards, and the ethical dilemmas that occur as social work values and professional ethics are operationalized in practice.