Social Work Practice with Individuals, Families, and Small Groups

In this course, you will learn about the transactional relationships between people and their social environments. You will learn social work practice methods to restore, maintain and promote social functioning as it relates to individuals, families, and small groups.

This course integrates content on multiculturalism, diversity, and social justice issues. You will examine social work values and ethics as well as issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, religion, and ability as these relate to social work practice. You will build off of behavioral and social science theories to inform the practice concepts and skills presented.

You will learn how to:

• Perform various social work roles, including counselor or clinical social worker, group facilitator, mediator, and advocate.

• Recognize that roles must adhere to social work values and ethics.

• Understand the importance of developing relationships with clients, colleagues, supervisors, other professionals, and other constituencies.

• Apply skills such as active listening, empathic responding, contracting, and critical and creative thinking in practice.

• All phases of the social work practice intervention process, including engagement, assessment, intervention and evaluation.

• Assess vulnerabilities and strengths in clients' lives that relate to attributes, such as ability, age, class, ethnicity, and more.

• Understand the condituational and environmental factors which affect clients.