Community Intervention

SW814, Section 001

This course examines community interventions as methodologies of planned social change. It analyzes the changing context of practice, major models and methods, and the uses of empirically-based research to formulate and evaluate general practice propositions and action guidelines. Models of planned change to be analyzed may include mass mobilization, social action, citizen participation, political advocacy, popular education, and neighborhood development. Methods to be examined may include skills of assessing community conditions, formulating action strategies, and building supportive organizations. Course materials draw on recent research and case studies in public and private settings, in health, housing, and other human services, and in a variety of territories from neighborhood to nation in industrial and developing areas. Emphasis is placed on problems and issues of economically oppressed people, African-Americans, women, and other groups, in addition to ethical and value aspects of practice, in multicultural communities.