Child and Family Well-Being - Macro Practice

SW623, Section 001

This course will provide a macro lens to assess and engage with various social services, policies, and programs that provide developmental, preventive, protective, and rehabilitative services for children, youth, and families. Students will be introduced to major policies and macro-level issues within the education, child welfare, and juvenile justice systems.

The racial and economic achievement and discipline gaps will be explored within the context of schools. Students will examine historical child welfare policy development, explore strengths, limitations, and outcomes, paying particular attention to systemic gaps in service delivery, the over-representation of children of color, the differential response of family serving systems based upon social identify differences, the structural exclusion of the voice of marginalized communities, and deficits of cultural and linguistic competence. The course will develop socially just and culturally-competent policies and practices by delving into the competing tensions of child-protection/family-preservation and quality/quantity of services, and analyze evidence-based change interventions that build on strengths and resources of children and their families at all levels of intervention while considering the diversity of families including race, ethnicity, culture, class, sexual orientation, gender expression, religion, ability and other social identities. Students will learn about disproportionate minority contact and the impact of incarceration on youth as well as interconnections between the three systems.

This course will also examine efforts to engage communities in the policy and service delivery process through a variety of mechanisms including community partnerships, coalitions, and systems of care. Students will be sensitized to the roles of power and privilege of professionals, and gain insights about how similarities and differences between themselves and client communities affect mezzo and macro policy development and implementation for children, youth, and families.