Field education is a central component in each student's professional education, and requires 21 hours a week for all four terms of the full-time M.S. degree. Placements provide a range of experiences to integrate with theoretical learning from class work and to develop knowledge, values, and skills for social practice.
Field education is a central component in each student's professional education, and requires 21 hours a week for all four terms of the full-time M.S. degree. Placements provide a range of experiences to integrate with theoretical learning from class work and to develop knowledge, values, and skills for social practice.
Field education is a central component in each student's professional education, and requires 21 hours a week for all four terms of the full-time M.S. degree. Placements provide a range of experiences to integrate with theoretical learning from class work and to develop knowledge, values, and skills for social practice.
Field education is a central component in each student's professional education, and requires 21 hours a week for all four terms of the full-time M.S. degree. Placements provide a range of experiences to integrate with theoretical learning from class work and to develop knowledge, values, and skills for social practice.
This course is designed to prepare social workers for clinical work with bereaved families. We emphasize the idea that grief therapy focuses importantly on active listening linked to interventions that provide validation, support or guidance. We provide a way of understanding grief using an attachment theory model that explains a big-picture framework for understanding grief and adaptation to loss. The centerpiece of the course is a presentation of an approach to grief therapy derived from our efficacy-tested treatment for complicated grief and incorporating attention to self-care, racism, ethical obligations and dilemmas and using peer or experienced supervision in doing grief therapy.
The course will give students preparation in using data to develop geographical information systems (GIS) applications for policy analysis, program planning and program evaluation. In addition, the course will develop skills in using infographics to present data in ways that are intuitively accessible to decision makers, as well as for advocacy and public education. Social workers in policy development advocacy, program development, community organization and other forms of practice will use these skills to make available data accessible to the public process. The course seeks to expand students’ skills in manipulating and interpreting data for public use. Students will begin by developing a conceptual understanding of the approaches and will then move to develop skills in using the appropriate software.
This course fosters students to challenge bias, prejudice, and forms of discrimination that operate in the lives of social workers and our clients. As a “laboratory,” learning begins with hands-on participation in a series of interactive exercises designed to elicit and deconstruct dynamics of racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, heterocentrism, classism, etc. Each activity is followed by a facilitated exploration and critical analysis of the experiential process. An emphasis is placed on professional and personal insight and skill with regards to culturally/contextually competent practice, processing of charged issues, and use of self. This course is well-suited for students who are authentic, willing to take risks, and committed to becoming effective agents of change towards social justice.
This course is conceived to assist social work practitioners identify and examine the ways various populations experience oppression and discrimination, with an eye towards the various dimensions that shape how “-isms” occur in our lives and society, including but not limited to:
Societal levels: personal, institutional, cultural
Visibility: overt, covert
Temporal: historical, periodic/occasional, everyday/ongoing
Actor: me, us, them
Dynamics of invalidation/forms of denial
This course introduces students to the field of social work and the law – specifically the practice of social work in legal settings. Students will develop competency in forensic social work practice - working knowledge as a practitioner in an interdisciplinary setting representing clients entangled in legal systems including criminal, civil, family and immigration. Students will deconstruct the complexities of the criminal legal systems and further develop awareness in addressing clients’ concerns related to their criminal justice history – pre-arrest, arrest, disposition and re-entry. Similarly, students will gain insight into the filing of Article X petitions in family court and the pathway of a child protection case. This course complements field placements in legal/forensic settings, law minors and students interested in social work and law rooted in rights-based advocacy. This course is premised on a basic understanding of how the legacy of slavery led to mass criminalization and incarceration. Black Lives Matter.
The course will focus on understanding the theory and varied practices of restorative justice (RJ) and transformative justice (TJ), and how they are being used as alternatives to retributive and punitive responses to social problems and individual, community and institutional harm. Students will learn – through modeling and practice – how to facilitate a restorative circle which can serve as the foundation for continued use of restorative practices in social work. The class will provide an understanding of the values and principles of RJ and R, and the most-commonly used RJ models and where they are being used. It will support students in understanding their own relationship to conflict and teach students how to facilitate restorative processes using peacemaking circles. Issues of power, privilege, oppression and identity will be substantial themes throughout the course, both in understanding the need for RJ and TJ, how RJ/TJ can address them, and the ways in which these issues arise in facilitation and the RJ/TJ movement. In addition to understanding RJ, the course will also provide students with a critical analysis of other theories and practices of conflict resolution including mediation, truth and reconciliation, and transitional justice, and how all of these relate to addressing individual, communal and institutional harm. Finally, the course will discuss how social workers can use restorative justice in a variety of settings.
This course takes a problem-identification and problem-solving approach to the delivery of social work services in health, mental health, and disabilities, with content about the social policies and organizational structures that characterize our current healthcare system.