| Credits: | 1 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Community Change | |
|---|---|
| Global | |
| Interpersonal Practice | Elective |
| Mgmt & Leadership | |
| Policy & Political | |
| Program Evaluation | |
| Older Adults | |
| Children & Families | Elective (Host) |
This is a methods course intended to develop skills for child welfare practice, with special attention to child maltreatment. Students learn about the various contexts in which child welfare practice takes place and the skills and modalities that are used with children, youth, and families who are the focus of child welfare intervention. This course will prepare students to work with diverse client populations and will help them appreciate the imbalance of power between client and professional. Understanding the needs and responses of involuntary clients is an integral part of the course. Relevant evidence-based practices are taught and child welfare policies and practices are subjected to critical review. The first term will focus on assessment and the second on treatment.
This course will cover the following areas: 1) personal, professional, and societal responses to children at risk for maltreatment, 2) diversity in the child welfare population and skills for working with diverse client populations, 3) client issues and responses to child welfare intervention, including power differentials and involuntariness, 4) theories that explain child maltreatment and their social construction, 5) assessment strategies to be used with children and adults with child welfare issues, 6) interventions employed in the child welfare system and the evidence or lack thereof to support them, and 7) evidence-based treatment strategies used with traumatized children. This course will focus upon practice issues, especially poverty and parental problems in families in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe.
Students will be sensitized to their personal reaction to child maltreatment. They will be apprised of professional expectations, such as mandatory reporting of child maltreatment, and will learn about the general structure of service delivery to child welfare clients, which constitutes the context within which they will provide services to clients.
Sensitization to the roles of power and privilege of professionals as they relate to both children and their parents is an integral part of the course. In addition, the course will address the sometimes conflicting needs of children and families and legal system impact on child welfare practice, as assessment and the various methods of treatment are taught.
The diversity of child welfare populations, in terms of race, ethnicity, culture, class, and sexual orientation will be covered. Of particular focus is the over-representation of children of color and the differential response of the child welfare system based upon class. Students will be made aware of how differences between themselves and clients of child welfare services affect service delivery. These differences will include race, developmental status, economic status, education, gender, and physical well-being.
1. Understand the roles and responsibilities of social workers practicing in child welfare, including mandatory reporting of child maltreatment, multidisciplinary approaches to child maltreatment, assessment, case management, and therapeutic roles, as well as statutory requirements related to case management within the child welfare system.
2. Be knowledgeable about how differences between themselves and their clients can affect perceptions of clients.
3. Demonstrate beginning skills in engaging diverse clients that reflect knowledge about diversity and power differentials between themselves and clients.
4. Recognize the consequences of the involuntary nature of the client’s relationship with them as service providers, of the impact of economic, racial, ethnic, gender, and other differences on their relationships with clients, and of the effect of their personal experiences on their practice in child welfare.
5. Demonstrate beginning ability to conduct individual and family assessments related to child welfare, including determining the likelihood of child maltreatment, evaluating parent child attachment, evaluating overall functioning of clients, setting appropriate treatment goals, and making case management plans.
6. Incorporate a perspective that honors clients’ strengths as well as vulnerabilities to both assessments and treatment with child welfare clients.
7. Demonstrate beginning mastery of intervention and treatment skills. Students will know how to intervene at a range of levels, such as individual, family, environmental, and system. They will develop beginning mastery of appropriate treatment approaches, derived from different conceptual frameworks, for example cognitive behavioral, trauma focused, and multi systemic. In using these approaches, they will know how to take into account differences based on age, class, culture, ethnicity, race, religion, physical and mental ability, sexual orientation, national origin, and gender.
8. Demonstrate beginning ability to evaluate intervention and treatment and revise interventions based upon evaluations. They will also be able to critically evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of specific child welfare programs and interventions for particular client populations.
This course will make use of lectures, demonstrations, discussion, media such as videotaped interviews with clients and individuals impacted by child welfare intervention, small group exercises, and role plays. This course will span two terms meeting three hours a week. Students will demonstrate their knowledge acquisition by means of class demonstration, written responses to assignments, participation in class discussion, in-class assignments, videotapes, and short papers about their child welfare practice.
University of Michigan
School of Social Work
1080 South University Avenue
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1106