| Credits: | 1 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Course Description: | This course will explore restorative practices as they relate to social work practice. The course will apply restorative conceptual frameworks and principles, while teaching applied restorative practice skills. Students will learn to apply restorative practices to a number of social work settings and across client populations, and will be able to identify how restorative practices can impact those involved. Ethical dilemmas, decision making, and ways to center issues of identity within restorative practices will be discussed. |
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | SW508 |
| Course Description: | In this course, students will be exposed to various theoretical frameworks informing policy development and gain an understanding of basic economic principles frequently employed in policy debates and discussions. With this knowledge, students will be able to identify, in a more sophisticated and nuanced way, policies that promote social justice and those that do not; understand how certain theoretical frameworks and ideas have been used to oppress and empower different groups, and identify points of interventions within existing institutions. One part of the course will cover different concepts of justice, fairness, and equity as they apply to public policy. Students will also interrogate ideas about neoliberalism, capitalism, globalization, and financialization and their influence on policies. Students will be introduced to concepts from economic theory that often used to promote or thwart the development of certain policies. This includes the concepts of supply and demand; market failure; and public goods. |
| Pathway Requirement For: | Policy & Political Social Work (Host) |
|---|---|
| Pathway Elective For: | Management & Leadership, Program Evaluation and Applied Research, Welfare of Children & Families |
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | SW508 |
| Course Description: | This course will introduce students to a set of analytic tools and skills for critical policy thinking, reading, and writing. Analytic tools introduced in this class include frameworks for policy analysis and using feminist, intersectional, and critical race lenses for policy analysis. The impact of race, gender, and class on policy development and enactment are emphasized throughout the course as well as an exploration of global approaches to policy analysis. This course will enhance critical writing skills and teach concise and persuasive writing methods, issue framing, and legislative literacy for effective policy writing. Students will learn qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods frequently used for policy analysis. Students will also be introduced to policy document writing, including policy briefs, memos, factsheets, op-eds, and public comments. Finally, students will learn how to locate, read, and translate policy for community consumption. |
| Pathway Requirement For: | Policy & Political Social Work (Host) |
|---|---|
| Pathway Elective For: | Global Social Work Practice, Management & Leadership, Program Evaluation and Applied Research |
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | SW509 |
| Course Description: | This course will introduce students to political social work, which is social work practice, theory, and research that focuses on the use of policy and politics to create social change. Students will gain an understanding of how politics impacts their lives as well as the lives of those served by social workers on both a micro and macro level. This course will prepare students for work in political settings, such as on advocacy and electoral campaigns, as staff for elected officials, and running for office themselves. Students will develop practice skills for policy advocacy and engaging with policymakers, influencing policy agendas, and empowering clients to become politically engaged. Students will critically examine the role of social workers in politics throughout history and the ethics that govern practice in political settings. Finally, students will develop a political engagement plan to facilitate their continued involvement. |
| Pathway Requirement For: | Policy & Political Social Work (Host) |
|---|---|
| Pathway Elective For: | Community Change |
| Credits: | 1 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Course Description: | This course will examine social policies, problems, and trends in social programs and services for older people. It will focus major attention on the strengths and limitations of existing policies and programs related to health, mental health, income maintenance, income deficiency, dependent care, housing, employment and unemployment, and institutional and residential care. This course will provide a framework for an analysis of the services provided to older people. This analysis will include the adequacy with which needs are met in various subgroups of the elderly population and across core diversity dimensions (including ability, age, class, color, culture, ethnicity, family structure, gender (including gender identity and gender expression), marital status, national origin, race, religion or spirituality, sex, and sexual orientation). It will also include proposals for change in policies, programs and services. Programs will be compared in terms of access to benefits and services provided to older people.. |
| Pathway Requirement For: | Social Work Practice with Older Adults and Families from a Lifespan Perspective |
|---|---|
| Pathway Elective For: | Policy & Political Social Work (Host) |
| Credits: | 1 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Course Description: | This course will survey major criminal justice issues facing adult populations in the U.S. Current criminal justice policies and policy alternatives to promote socially justice responses to crime and justice will be reviewed. Special topics such as mass incarceration, policing, and health and mental health needs in the criminal justice system will be covered, including relevant state and federal social policies aimed at addressing these issues. |
| Pathway Elective For: | Policy & Political Social Work (Host) |
|---|
| Credits: | 1 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Course Description: | Power and ideology become established and (re)produced in social policy through its discourse and language. Critical analysis of policy discourse, thus, enables social work to make that power and ideology visible and then make challenge. This course will examine social policies by looking at the narratives, frames, representations, values, priorities, and omissions that are produced and reproduced in policy, and ways of challenging. Students will examine how discourses of deservingness, worth and productivity are deeply entrenched in US policies on various domains, such as public assistance, refugee resettlement, climate change, disability, health and poverty. Students will complete a mini or abbreviated Critical Discourse Analysis of policy of their choice by the end of the course. |
| Pathway Elective For: | Policy & Political Social Work (Host) |
|---|
| Credits: | 1 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | SW508 |
| Course Description: | This policy skills course will help students develop an understanding of how to analyze, formulate, and advocate for policies that advance human rights and social, economic, and/or environmental justice through the application of critical thinking skills. Content area will be drawn from current events (e.g., immigration, child welfare, health care debates), and students will learn how to critically analyze the policy implications. Students will develop strategies to engage in policy practice to effect change and advocate for clients. |
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | Foundation Essentials Required |
| Course Description: | This class will focus on the theories and practices for community change, with emphasis on the relationships between theory and practice (‘praxis’). It will familiarize students to a range of critical change theories and core concepts and help students to develop their own understanding of frameworks for community change. Students will engage with different theories in examining community change, which may include critical intersectionality, critical race, empowerment and liberation, social movement, and feminist theories, as examples. It will also look to historical and contemporary examples of community and social change movements to explore theory and practice including US and global community change movements, and the work of organic intellectuals and social change leaders (e.g. Grace Lee Boggs, Ella Baker, Myles Horton, ACT-UP, Black Lives Matter, #metoo, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Zapatistas, #GirlsLikeUs, World Social Forum, Climate Change). Throughout the class, students will also use these examples to examine and understand the major range of models and practices for engaging in community change, for example: community organizing, community development, community-based policy advocacy, and popular education, and be able to assess the differences, purposes, and theoretical basis for the practices. For Community Change Pathway participants: We strongly recommend that this course be taken before or concurrently with the other required pathway class. |
| Pathway Requirement For: | Community Change (Host) |
|---|
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Course Description: | This course examines methods of organizing people for social and political action on their own behalf or on behalf of others. Students will analyze different approaches to bringing people together for collective action, building organizational capacity, and generating power, with emphasis on the role of labor unions, coalitions, political organizing, and community-based policy advocacy. The course includes the study of skills in analyzing power structures, developing action strategies, conflict and persuasive tactics, challenging oppressive structures, conducting community campaigns, using political advocacy as a form of mobilization, and understanding contemporary social issues as they affect oppressed and disadvantaged communities. Special emphasis will be placed on organizing around social, economic, racial, and political injustice in the US and globally. Additional emphasis will be placed on organizing with communities of color, women, LGBTQIA2S+ populations, and other under-represented groups. |
| Pathway Elective For: | Community Change (Host), Management & Leadership, Policy & Political Social Work |
|---|
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | Foundation Essentials Required |
| Course Description: | This course will engage students in learning core cross-cutting skills needed for engaging in community change. It will use a framework of “ Scan” - “Plan” – “Do” – “Review” to help organize skills. Learning to infuse cross-cutting principles including critical Praxis. Scan- Assessment and Scanning Skills (individual to community). Illustrative skills may include: social identity assessments, individual skills assessments, story of self/personal motivational assessments, community power mapping, asset/strength assessments, organizational/community scans, and neighborhood mapping Plan- Planning Skills. Illustrative skills may include: participatory community planning, strategy charts, implementation of planning steps, logic charts and theory of change Do- Action Skills. Illustrative skills may include: one-on-ones (formal and informal), facilitating participatory meetings, coalition-building techniques and considerations, policy advocacy, program development, intergroup facilitation, and community mobilization Review- Community reflection and Evaluation Skills. Illustrative skills may include: critical reflection, program/organizational evaluation, monitoring, campaign analysis, and participatory evaluation |
| Pathway Requirement For: | Community Change (Host) |
|---|
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Course Description: | This course will support community change students to promote and advance projects aimed at change- in the school of social work, in field placements, on-campus, or in the community. The course will operate in a lab/workshop type format and use student-led projects to drive class content, discussion, and skills. Students will learn to employ community change models in their projects, as well as learn the process for innovating design-thinking approaches in the development of projects. The class will be highly participatory and focus on peer-learning, critical reflection, and peer consultation. |
| Pathway Elective For: | Community Change (Host) |
|---|
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Course Description: | The course focuses on concepts and issues that characterize community planning for neighborhoods and explores interdisciplinary approaches to neighborhood analysis and intervention. The initiatives of community development corporations, city agencies, and the federal government are examined through lectures, readings, and guest speakers. The central questions the course examines are: Why do neighborhoods experience prosperity and decline? Which approaches (e.g. economic development, urban design, social service delivery, housing rehabilitation, community organizing and empowerment) are likely to be most effective in revitalizing neighborhoods? How do we assess existing approaches to neighborhood revitalization? Emphasis is placed on discovering appropriate information sources, learning to ask relevant planning questions, and formulating program alternatives and recommendations. |
| Pathway Elective For: | Community Change (Host) |
|---|
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Course Description: | This course examines strategies for engaging and empowering young people, with emphasis on approaches in racially segregated and economically disinvested areas. It considers core concepts of youth empowerment at the individual, organizational, and community levels; models and methods of practice; age-appropriate and culturally-responsive approaches; roles of young people and adult allies; and perspectives on practice in a diverse democracy. The course will draw upon best practices from grassroots organizing, civic engagement, youth development, and child welfare. |
| Pathway Elective For: | Community Change (Host), Welfare of Children & Families |
|---|
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Course Description: | This course will examine organizing in multicultural, multilingual and global contexts. The course will examine the process of promoting intergroup relations and social development and the skills needed to facilitate change across settings. In particular, students will explore the roles of power, privilege, oppression, and social identities in organizing for change in diverse communities and coalitions, and across cultural and global contexts. Students will also examine contemporary and historic efforts to engage in multicultural, multilingual coalitions and multi-national and global change efforts, including climate justice and racial justice. |
| Pathway Elective For: | Community Change (Host), Global Social Work Practice |
|---|
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Course Description: | This course will examine feminist and critical intersectionality theories as an approach and framework for community change. It will emphasize understanding the role of power embedded in structures, how power manifests in privilege and oppression and in social patterns of inequality. Students will engage in learning frameworks identifying and analyzing injustice through a feminist and critical intersectional lens as well as developing skills to utilizing these frameworks in community change practice. Students will also use this lens to explore examples of feminist and critical intersectional change efforts in the US and globally. |
| Pathway Elective For: | Community Change (Host) |
|---|
| Credits: | 1 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Course Description: | Participants in this course will examine racial microaggressions in practice as a source of these outcomes. Participants will define and identify racial microaggressions and their impact on clients and on the professional relationship. Attention will be given to the cultural context in the way racial microaggressions are experienced and dilemmas about how to respond. The effect of power differentials on the interpretation of racial microaggressions will be examined. Using an African-centered perspective, the course will be knowledge-, skills-, and values-based. |
| Pathway Elective For: | Interpersonal Practice in Integrated Health, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse (Host) |
|---|
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Course Description: | Traditional project management tools enable social workers to conceive, plan, design, implement, manage, assess, and change projects effectively. Whereas projects are time-bound and discrete, programs are an ongoing collection of projects that can be managed together. Managing programs and projects in an inclusive and socially just manner necessarily requires engaging all people involved or affected by a project in meaningful and deliberate ways. Students will weave technical—and technological—tools together with inclusive structures in order to include and engage all stakeholders in the success of projects and programs. Technical skills developed in this course involve selecting and implementing tools to strategically design and manage projects in rapidly changing environments, as well as maximizing inclusion and equity with diverse populations. Management is a set of well-known processes, like planning, budgeting, structuring jobs, staffing jobs, measuring performance and problem-solving. This course will concentrate on single service projects as planned systems of action that engage the perspectives of clients, program and project staff, directors and managers, as well as the full organization. This course will prepare students to assist in tasks common to all phases of project development and assume independent responsibility for performing tasks some of these tasks (e.g., documenting program plans, developing initial budgets, program process analysis, and scheduling change). Specific attention will be given to issues in program design and development and the differential impacts on social identity groups that traditionally have been marginalized. |
| Pathway Elective For: | Community Change, Global Social Work Practice, Management & Leadership (Host), Policy & Political Social Work, Program Evaluation and Applied Research |
|---|
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Course Description: | This course will present the fundamental knowledge and skills needed to develop and manage the budget and finances of a social impact organization and its programs. Students will learn to use the techniques necessary to: 1) Plan, develop, display, revise, monitor, and evaluate a program budget using different kinds of budget formats; 2) Evaluate past financial performance; 3) Evaluate and propose financial changes for the future; 4) Monitor and evaluate the cost-efficiency and cost-effectiveness of social impact programs and organizations. The course will include exercises to develop and manage a budget for a program in an organization, along with a review of relevant policies and procedures in these organizations. Students will learn to understand cost analysis, and calculate income and expense estimates. The pros and cons of using various types of budgets will be compared. Students will receive an introduction to the process of overall organizational financial planning and auditing, including such topics as the role of Boards of Directors and consultants in financial management, planning, and evaluation. Calculation of indirect (overhead) costs, allocation methods, and issues of continuation funding will be discussed. Students will learn to develop an annual budget.. Development of a budget will include estimating and allocating all costs, including that of of personnel, which is the major expense in human service programs. Students will learn how basic financial transactions are reported through standard accounting procedures, how revenues and expenses are monitored and how all the finances of the agency are consolidated into typical financial statements . Additional topics are introduced to highlight contemporary issues affecting financial stability and sustainability. |
| Pathway Elective For: | Management & Leadership (Host), Policy & Political Social Work, Program Evaluation and Applied Research |
|---|
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | Foundation Essentials required |
| Course 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. |
| 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, Welfare of Children & Families |
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Course Description: | Social impact organizations secure resources through a variety of methods, including fees, grants, contracts, financial gifts, in-kind (non-cash) contributions, and investments. This course involves assessing an agency’s resource mix and developing tactics and strategies to sustain or expand its revenue streams. Students will explore the range of possible income sources that organizations can allocate to advance social justice by expanding and improving services, empowering groups, reaching populations in need, improving social conditions or anticipating and responding to new challenges. The implications of using alternative approaches of income generation and of changing the income mix will be analyzed in terms of mission accomplishment, program viability, adherence to ethics and values, and organizational sustainability. Skill development will be emphasized in areas such as grant seeking, proposal writing, donor development, direct solicitation of gifts, service contracting, and strategically communicating mission. Students will learn how to identify prospective funding sources, build relationships with potential donors, funders and collaborators, write, package and submit grant proposals, and communicate strategically. This course will also address emerging and changing trends in philanthropy. |
| Pathway Elective For: | Community Change, Management & Leadership (Host), Policy & Political Social Work, Program Evaluation and Applied Research |
|---|
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Course Description: | This course will focus on how administrators of social impact organizations can increase their effectiveness by supporting quality staff performance and employee engagement through structured human resource practice methods. This course will present ways to develop an equitable, healthy, and viable workplace for employees and employers. It will explore the role of social workers as change agents within organizations and the societal level impact of those changes. Students will learn relevant skills in staff recruitment, hiring, retention and termination, staff development, compensation and performance, and the development of benefit packages. Relevant laws and legislation governing workplace relationships such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) will also be reviewed. Students will learn about work organization and job design, personnel recruitment and selection, performance monitoring and improvement, and compensation management. Students will learn that personnel management and staff development within human service organizations involve shared responsibility and active participation. Issues pertaining to dimensions of identity (ability, age, class, color, culture, ethnicity, family structure, gender [including gender identity and gender expression], marital status, national origin, race, religion or spirituality, sex, and sexual orientation) will be given special attention, particularly in the areas of recruitment, promotion, compensation, and benefits. Emphasis will also be placed on assessing and developing organizational cultures that are inclusive and maximize their positive impact. |
| Pathway Elective For: | Management & Leadership (Host) |
|---|
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | Foundation Essentials Required |
| Course Description: | This course will examine the attributes, skills, behaviors, problems, and issues associated with leadership in social impact organizations, both in the public and private sectors. Students will explore multiple styles of leadership, as well as the application of those styles in various settings. Some emphasis will be placed on the basic rudiments of executive positions and roles in relation to decision-making and facilitation, organizational governance, and relationships with boards of directors and external stakeholders. Issues pertaining to intersectional dimensions of identity (ability, age, class, color, culture, ethnicity, family structure, gender, gender identity and gender expression, marital status, national origin, race, religion, spirituality, sex, sexual orientation) will be given special attention, particularly as students develop their own identity as leaders and manage relationships and conflict in the workplace. Leadership will also be analyzed in relation to the stages of organizational development. Concomitant with the above executive roles and skills, this course will address strategies for organizational development that are directed toward advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as enhancing adaptability, effectiveness, and efficiency to serving populations that have traditionally experienced marginalization. |
| Pathway Requirement For: | Management & Leadership (Host) |
|---|---|
| Pathway Elective For: | Policy & Political Social Work, Welfare of Children & Families |
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | SW507 |
| Course Description: | This course is designed as an introduction to the process of qualitative inquiry with a particular focus on the challenges of engaging in anti-oppressive, socially just, culturally sensitive, and decolonizing research activities. It will introduce students to the philosophical underpinnings of qualitative inquiry as well as expose them to basic issues in designing and implementing qualitative research projects. Students enrolled in the Evaluation and Research Pathway must select from one of two required foundational courses before completing their specialized electives in methodologies and methods. This course will meet that foundational requirement. |
| Pathway Requirement For: | Program Evaluation and Applied Research (Host) |
|---|---|
| Pathway Elective For: | Global Social Work Practice, Policy & Political Social Work |
| Credits: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Prerequisites: | SW507 |
| Course Description: | This course is designed to advance the foundational ideas of quantitative research in social work and the social sciences, with a particular focus on applied quantitative research dedicated to the study of social problems and the development of social interventions at the macro, meso and micro levels. The course will deepen students’ understanding of such issues as sample selection, measurement, and questionnaire design, research design, and basic analytic approaches. Students enrolled in the Evaluation and Research Pathway must select from one of two required foundational courses before completing their specialized electives in methodologies and methods. This course will meet that foundational requirement. |
| Pathway Requirement For: | Program Evaluation and Applied Research (Host) |
|---|---|
| Pathway Elective For: | Global Social Work Practice, Policy & Political Social Work |
University of Michigan
School of Social Work
1080 South University Avenue
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1106