Lecture: 4 hours/week
Lecture
Group exercises
Student presentations
Course content will be guided by research, empirical knowledge, and best practice. The following values and principles, consistent with professional standards, inform course content:
- Professional involvement with individuals and families includes immediate and long-term planning to develop sustainable support and maintenance strategies.
- Goals are developed in partnership between service users and the mandated system.
- Effective communication and social work interventions with individuals and families requires clarity of the professional role and its responsibilities, as well as the knowledge and application of evidence-based approaches to working with individuals and families (ie. motivational interviewing, relational practice, strengths-based approaches, etc).
- Communicating is key to work within inter-disciplinary teams.
- Ethical practice includes cultural reflexivity and critical self-reflection when working with diverse groups, individuals, families and colleagues.
- An understanding of the legacy of colonization is essential in providing culturally appropriate interventions when working with Indigenous individuals and families.
- Social workers are responsible for the accurate and fair application of the legislation and policies underpinning intervention.
Upon successful completion of this course the student will be able to:
- Apply a range of skills and strategies for effective immediate and long-term engagement and planning with individuals and families to achieve positive change, develop resilience, resolve conflict, achieve goals and prevent relapse.
- Explain the reasons for over-representation of people from Indigenous and diverse backgrounds within formal systems of support and explain how to provide culturally appropriate services within these systems.
- Identify knowledge, skills and competencies of cross-agency practice and while working within inter-disciplinary teams.
- Discuss strengths-based approaches to work with individuals and families from intake to closure, utilizing community supports agencies.
- Identify characteristics and implement strategies for working with hard to engage individuals and families, including the implications for practice when working with aggression or resistance.
- Describe the various settings for working with mandated individuals and families such as home visits, in-patient visits or community visits.
- Demonstrate critical awareness of the legal framework and policies related to working with individuals and families through assessment and case planning.
- Demonstrate a critical awareness to manage the ‘power differential’ between professionals, individuals and families requiring support.
Evaluations will be carried out in accordance with °µÍø51 Evaluation Policy and will include both formative and summative components. Instructors may use a student’s record of attendance and/or level of active participation in a course as part of the student’s graded performance. Where this occurs, expectations and grade calculations regarding class attendance and participation will be clearly defined in the instructor’s course outline. Typical means of evaluation would include a combination of any of the following:
- Examinations
- Research papers
- Projects
- Participation
Textbooks and materials are to be purchased by students. A list of required textbooks and materials is provided for students at the beginning of the semester. Example texts may include:
Rooney, R.H., & Mirick, R.G. (Eds). (Current edition). Strategies for Work with Involuntary Clients. Columbia University Press.
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