Class Descriptions

SW662

Frameworks for Understanding Social Impact Organizations

Grading Method:
Graded
Credits:
3 Credit Hours
Prerequisites:
Foundation Essentials required
Pathway Requirement For:
Management & Leadership (Host)
Pathway Elective For:
Community Change, Global Social Work Practice, Policy & Political Social Work, Program Evaluation and Applied Research, Social Work Practice with Older Adults and Families from a Lifespan Perspective, Children, Youth, and Families
Description:
This course will provide an overview of traditional and contemporary organizational theories and strategic frameworks relevant to understanding social impact organizations. A wide range of topics will be covered including but not limited to: organizational survival and adaptation to environmental changes, power asymmetry/dynamics between service providers and clients, staff and client diversity and inclusion, and informal strategies that providers develop to legitimize their practices while satisfying multiple stakeholders’ expectations. Using multiple theories and perspectives, students will develop a conceptual framework for recognizing how various environmental-, organizational-, and individual-level attributes shape social impact organizational behaviors and service provider’s practices. The framework will help students to reflect on organizational experiences and critically analyze institutionalized assumptions and beliefs that reside within social impact organizations. Using the conceptual basis acquired from this course, students will be asked to analyze a social impact organization and recommend strategies to improve organizational functioning.
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SW690

Adulthood and Aging

Grading Method:
Graded
Credits:
3 Credit Hours
Prerequisites:
Foundation Essentials Required
Pathway Requirement For:
Social Work Practice with Older Adults and Families from a Lifespan Perspective (Host)
Pathway Elective For:
Interpersonal Practice in Integrated Health, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse
Description:
This course focuses on bio-psycho-social development and changes in mid- and late-adulthood. It will cover six major areas. (a) Demographic trends globally and in the United States, (b) Major theoretical perspectives including the life course and life-span perspectives. (c) Biological and cognitive changes in the second half of life. (d) Common chronic conditions and their treatment in older adults. (e) Psychological and social development in mid- and late-adulthood. (f) Definitions and determinants of positive and healthy aging. Special attention will be paid to diversity and social justice issues, including similarities and differences in the experience of aging related to an individual's position in society (e.g., class, race/ethnicity, immigration status, religion, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity), and institutional and social factors that marginalize some segments of the older population.
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SW694

Interpersonal Practice Methods in Aging

Grading Method:
Graded
Credits:
3 Credit Hours
Prerequisites:
SW506
Pathway Requirement For:
Social Work Practice with Older Adults and Families from a Lifespan Perspective (Host)
Pathway Elective For:
Global Social Work Practice, Interpersonal Practice in Integrated Health, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse
Description:
This course focuses on intervention with older people at the micro level. This content will be integrated with intervention strategies directed toward aging adults, including evidence-based interventions and practices. Major areas to be discussed are: coping with age related changes, caregiving demands, legal and financial planning, elder abuse, sexuality and intimacy, and loss and grief. This course will also address the diverse dimensions including: ability, age, class, color, culture, ethnicity, family structure, gender, marital status, national origin, race, religion or spirituality, and sexual orientation. The IP intervention will focus on intake, screening, initial evaluation, treatment and termination issues involved in working with older clients and their families. Such skills as reaching out, engaging reluctant or impaired elders, and successful termination of intervention will be covered. Various psychiatric disorders more typically diagnosed among the elderly will be discussed and intervention strategies identified.
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SW700

Psychopharmacology

Grading Method:
S/U
Credits:
1 Credit Hour
Prerequisites:
None
Pathway Elective For:
Interpersonal Practice in Integrated Health, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse (Host), Social Work Practice with Older Adults and Families from a Lifespan Perspective
Description:
This course has a clinical focus and practical orientation; therefore, we will examine basic neuropsychopharmacology, neurotransmitter systems, drug metabolism (i.e, absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion), and the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of psychotropic medications to only a limited degree. Our emphasis will be primarily on understanding the physiological actions, therapeutic effects, and potential toxicities associated with prescribed pharmacotherapies for major classes of mental disorders affecting youth, adults, and older adults.
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SW707

Clients and CommServices and Supports to Transgender unities

Grading Method:
Graded
Credits:
1 Credit Hour
Prerequisites:
None
Pathway Elective For:
Interpersonal Practice in Integrated Health, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse (Host), Social Work Practice with Older Adults and Families from a Lifespan Perspective
Description:
This course will increase students’ capacity to understand the issues faced by gender diverse people and communities, including but not limited to trans and nonbinary persons across the life span, and capacity to provide gender-affirming social work support to this group. To achieve these goals, this course will 1) offer a working definition of terms, including (but not limited to): Transgender, Gender Identity, Gender Expression, Gender Expansive, Gender Diverse, Intersex, Nonbinary, Cisgender, and Accomplice; 2) examine multiple risk factors that impact trans and gender diverse people (e.g., mental health issues, economic insecurity, violence) from a strengths-based lens; 3) examine protective factors (e.g., social support, community); 3) consider how these experiences are differentially experienced across intersections of race, class, and disability status, among other facets of identity/experience; and, 4) educate students about resources for trans and gender diverse individuals and communities and where/how to access these resources. Of particular importance, the concept of gender affirmation will be introduced, including mechanisms for social, legal, and medical gender affirmation, with examination of the role of the Social Worker in each of these domains.
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SW709

Counseling and Advocacy with LGBTQIA2S+ Adults

Grading Method:
S/U
Credits:
1 Credit Hour
Prerequisites:
None
Pathway Elective For:
Interpersonal Practice in Integrated Health, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse (Host), Social Work Practice with Older Adults and Families from a Lifespan Perspective
Description:
This course will introduce and address issues of concern to interpersonal practice clients across the lifespan who identify as Transgender, Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, Queer or questioning, focusing on the basic knowledge, interpersonal practice and advocacy skills it takes to become increasingly competent in providing counseling and advocacy for people who are in these marginalize, yet highly resilient, groups. From a strength-based perspective, this course will focus on basic social work knowledge and understanding of these groups, the social injustice and stigma facing these groups, but ultimately, how to engage, assess and effectively intervene with current, associated issues through therapy and advocacy. This course will also address self-exploration and ethical dilemmas for social work providers with TBLGQ people, and include real practice experiences with people from our local community. Students will be encouraged to actively engage in the course.
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SW717

Grief Counseling Principles and Practice

Grading Method:
Graded
Credits:
1 Credit Hour
Prerequisites:
SW 617 recommended, not required
Pathway Elective For:
Interpersonal Practice in Integrated Health, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse (Host), Social Work Practice with Older Adults and Families from a Lifespan Perspective
Description:
This course is designed to deepen knowledge and skills in grief counseling to work effectively with a diverse range of bereaved individuals. Theoretical underpinnings of grief and loss counseling and contexts in which counseling may occur will be explored. Developing specific grief assessment and intervention clinical skills applicable to a range of diverse clients across the lifespan with different types of loss will be the focus of the course.
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SW732

Suicide Assessment and Prevention

Grading Method:
S/U
Credits:
1 Credit Hour
Prerequisites:
None
Pathway Elective For:
Interpersonal Practice in Integrated Health, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse (Host), Social Work Practice with Older Adults and Families from a Lifespan Perspective, Children, Youth, and Families
Description:
Suicide is a leading cause of preventable death in the United States. Suicide risk assessment, risk formulation, and treatment are consistently difficult in practice and greater attention to this public health issue and prevention efforts are needed, especially so, by social workers who provide the majority of mental health services in the U.S. This one-credit course is designed for MSW students who are focused on interpersonal practice and will cover the following topics: the critical issue of suicide (prevalence), suicide-risk assessment (risk and protective factors, warning signs, components of the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale scale), formulating suicide risk (determining a level of suicide risk for subsequent alignment with appropriate action), and prevention approaches including evidence-informed interventions (including multi-level prevention at the universal, institutional, and individual levels). Students will have the opportunity to apply knowledge and practice skills with use of case vignettes, roleplays, and simulations.
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SW742

Policy & Political Social Work Simulation Lab

Grading Method:
S/U
Credits:
1 Credit Hour
Prerequisites:
None
Pathway Elective For:
Policy & Political Social Work (Host), Social Work Practice with Older Adults and Families from a Lifespan Perspective
Description:
In this course, students will participate in a simulation in which they will take on the role of policymakers, policy advocates, and community stakeholders. Students will be assigned a role, will research their character, and will engage with the other participants as that character throughout the duration of the simulation. Students will engage with each other in person as well as utilize an online platform to develop coalitions and attempt to sway those with differing positions to their side. Simulation topics vary by semester. The class may be taken multiple times for credit as long as a different topic is selected.
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SW746

Attachment Theory in Clinical Practice through the Lifespan

Grading Method:
S/U
Credits:
1 Credit Hour
Prerequisites:
None
Pathway Elective For:
Interpersonal Practice in Integrated Health, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse (Host), Social Work Practice with Older Adults and Families from a Lifespan Perspective, Children, Youth, and Families
Description:
Understanding the implications of childhood relationships on adult functioning can provide a powerful framework for creating goals and intervention in adult psychotherapy. Using attachment theory as the foundation, this course will address relationship-based intervention with adults. Students will learn the role of attachment in the development and maintenance of strategies that adults use to manage needs for autonomy and connection, in social, family and romantic relationships.
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