Advanced Topics in Community Change

SW759, Section 001

This course will be a rotation elective course focused on special and contemporary topics in community change. It will be faculty-driven and focus on specific and important issues in community change, including specific issues impacting community change, contemporary organizing efforts, specific skills in community change, and/or specific issues, policy, population, or contexts for community change.

Topic Description / Additional Information

As a community-informed profession, and in this moment of historic progress and crisis in our nation, it is essential that social workers learn how to work with communities - and assist them - in their response to crisis. Whether it be community outreach during a pandemic, organizing and mobilizing community members to protest against racial injustice, or internal crises management within organizations, a social worker must be grounded in actual community needs, and be able to apply both micro and macro social work skills, theory, and practice to individuals, groups, communities, and organizations experiencing significant change and transformation.

SSW ENGAGE hosts virtual discussions, a series of equity focused conversations that uplift the community response to social justice issues. These conversations help to uplift the work of actual advocates in the field, and urge social workers to reflect and discuss how our professional values and skills are being utilized in movements for social change. These virtual discussions will form the basis of this course.