Disability Justice & Practice

Catalog description

This course is designed to deepen your understanding of disability and its relevance to social work. We will discuss disability’s recent socio-political history, models of disability, and current policy issues at the national, state, and local level. Emphasis will be placed on how those policies and their implications for practice affect peoples’ daily lives. This course will engage a broad range of topics that are foundational to social work practice with people with disabilities, including activism for policy change, person-centered practice, employment, housing and home and community based services, institutional and sexual violence, education and transition to adulthood. We will discuss the disability rights framework as well as a disability justice framework and learn from a diverse group of visiting practitioners, scholars, and advocates about the connections between current policy issues and social services in practice. This course will facilitate critical reflection on your own professional stance in relation to these contemporary issues and trends.