Child and Family Well-Being - Micro Practice

SW622, Section 801

CSWE Competencies
● Intervention: Social workers a) Initiate actions to achieve organizational goals; b) Help clients resolve problems; c) Negotiate, mediate, and advocate for clients; and d) Facilitate transitions and endings.
● Evaluation: Social workers a) critically analyze, monitor, and evaluate interventions

This course will present prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation practice theories and techniques emphasizing culturally responsive and evidence-informed interventions that address diverse groups of infants, children, and youth within their social contexts.(e.g., peer group, school, family, neighborhood, and communities).

A variety of evidence-based interventions for engaging children, youth, and families (or other caretaking adults such as foster parents) will be presented. Particular attention will be paid to cultural, social, and economic factors that influence client functioning or the worker’s ability to accurately implement interventions that enhance client capacities. A range of evidence-based intervention approaches will be presented such as cognitive behavioral therapy, psychoeducation, behavioral therapy, parent management training and multi-tiered school based interventions. Promising practices for children and adolescents across child serving settings will also be reviewed. The use of play therapy in working with young children and children who have been traumatized will be explored.

Content will focus on the early phases of intervention, including barriers to engagement that may result from client-worker differences, involuntary participation on the part of the child, youth, or family, and factors external to the client-worker relationship, such as policy or institutional decisions that may influence or shape intervention. Since work with children and youth almost always requires multiple intervention modalities, attention will be given to creating effective intervention plans through the integration of different modalities. Those intervention methods that have been empirically demonstrated to be effective will be given particular emphasis. Methods for monitoring and evaluating interventions are discussed and demonstrated in this course.

Intervention strategies taught in this course rely significantly on the social worker as a critical component of the change process, thus attention will be paid to the understanding of self as an instrument in the change process.