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Associate Professor Dennis Miehls
To ensure training in areas
the School feels are key to a solid clinical education, courses are divided
into four academic sequences: Social Work Practice; Human Behavior
in the Social Environment; Social Welfare Policy and Services; and
Research. The academic sessions span 10 weeks each summer with courses
offered as one or two term offerings of 5 weeks each.
This
sequence teaches generic skills of social work practice and
specialized skills of clinical social work. It prepares students
to practice in a range of settings, with different size client
systems, and diverse presenting problems, from a range of practice
theories and models, according to the ethical precepts and
knowledge base of the profession. The Practice Sequence ensures that
students consider the cultural and social forces that impact on clients’ lives
and opportunities, as well as the internal and subjective meanings of clients’ experience
in order to work sensitively within an integrative framework. Practice courses
integrate and apply knowledge from all of the curriculum’s content areas.
The case study serves as the primary vehicle for accomplishing this goal, where
the “case” is focused on individual, family, group, organization,
or community problems or needs. Since case studies and vignettes are used in
all of the practice courses, it is at this level that the psychological and
the social meet.
The psychosocial perspective
serves as the primary guide in shaping the HBSE curriculum.
Courses focus on bodies of knowledge and theory that help to explain
the intimate and extended contexts that shape human development and
experience, that help explore the inner lives and psychological functioning
of children and adults, and that help to explain the complex interactions
between person and context. Content on individuals, families,
groups, organizations, communities, culture, social structure, and
political and economic forces—as
well as on the relationships among various groupings—is all an integral
part of the HBSE curriculum.
Social welfare policy is the
context through which the public sanctions the delivery of
clinical social work services and legitimizes the role of
the social work profession. These courses are designed to enhance
the training of clinical social work students by contributing to their
knowledge of the major historical developments in the American social
welfare system and their knowledge of policy developments within specific
fields of practice including heath, mental health, child
welfare, family, aging, and/or disability. Contemporary policy issues
are examined in relation to economic developments, demographic changes
in the population, the evolution of knowledge about public
issues, technology, and advances within the profession.
The Research Sequence
teaches a wide range of content knowledge. Courses develop
skills in critical thinking, in conducting qualitative and
quantitative research and writing, and in addressing value
and ethical issues related to doing and reporting research.
The required research course prepares students for the independent
research project, which is done during the placement period
in the final year.
Updated 7/17/06 |
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