UMB SSW COURSES

FOUNDATION CURRICULUM COURSES

ADVANCED CURRICULUM COURSES 

RESEARCH OPTION COURSES 

ADVANCED HUMAN BEHAVIOR COURSES 

CLINICAL METHOD OPTION COURSES 

MANAGEMENT AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION OPTION [MACO] COURSES

ADVANCED FIELD INSTRUCTION 

OTHER ELECTIVE COURSES 

WEB-BASED COURSES 

*approved as a diversity course

FOUNDATION CURRICULUM COURSES
SOWK 600—Social Welfare and Social Policy [3 credits]
The Foundation Curriculum courses provide understanding and appraisal of social welfare policies and programs in the United States and the historical and contemporary forces that have shaped their development. The course introduces conceptual approaches to policy analysis and assesses selected social policies, programs, and services in income maintenance, health care, and personal social services in accordance with these approaches and with specific reference to their impact on special populations. The social work profession’s role in the formulation and implementation of social policy and its tradition of advocacy, social action, and reform are explicated. Social work values regarding the meeting of human needs and the right of all citizens to live in an atmosphere of growth and development are emphasized.

SOWK 630 and 631—Social Work Practice [3 credits each semester]
SOWK 630—Social Work Practice I
SOWK 631—Social Work Practice II
Based on an ecological systems perspective, these courses teach a generic model of social work practice applicable throughout a wide range of practice settings. Over two semesters, practice is taught with individuals, groups, families, communities, and organizations. Applications of value and ethical dimensions of social work practice with diverse populations are examined and illustrated throughout the courses. Students remain with their cohort both semesters. These two courses must be taken concurrently with Field Instruction SOWK 635 and 636.

SOWK 635, 636—Foundation Field Instruction [3 credits each semester]
The core Field Instruction Curriculum provides the framework for knowledge and skill development through immediate application of theoretical knowledge presented in the classroom to real situations presented by individuals, groups, or service delivery systems. The practicum helps students learn to shape human services in ways that respond to broad social welfare needs and issues through various forms of intervention. Attention is directed to what is currently known and practiced, to the preparation of students for change in the knowledge base and organization of services, and for reflection on the practice curriculum. Students should have knowledge of, and an opportunity to develop competence in, service delivery that reflects their understanding of the particular needs of minorities, women, and people of various ethnic backgrounds. The course aims to integrate the entire foundation curriculum. The course teaches a common core of knowledge and principles of social work practice in which students are guided by the values and ethics of the profession.

SOWK 640, 641—Human Behavior and Social Environment I and II [3 credits each semester]
This two-semester sequence includes theories of human behavior, including normal and pathological processes applicable to individuals, families, formal organizations, and communities, the last ranging from neighborhoods to the world. Further emphases include the study of family, organizational, and community structures and processes and how they impact the lives of men and women of diverse backgrounds and identities. SOWK 640 is a prerequisite to SOWK 641.

SOWK 670—Social Work Research [3 credits]
Students are provided an opportunity to learn the elements of the scientific method and to develop basic research competence in the context of social work practice, including the student’s own. The course is concerned with the identification and formulation of practice research problems, including various design strategies and techniques for gathering, analyzing, and presenting data. Emphasis is placed on both explanation and understanding of problems and interventions to contribute to practice knowledge development. Issues of ethics in the conduct of research, such as the nature of informed consent, are stressed. This course is offered both on campus and on the Web.

<<top

ADVANCED CURRICULUM COURSES
Policy Option Courses
(Prerequisite: SOWK 600)
Options are determined by the student’s concentration and specialization.

SOWK 701—Income Maintenance and Social Policy [3 credits]
Offered occasionally, this course examines income maintenance policies, programs, and poverty issues within the context of an economic and political system that generates inequity in the distribution of income and power, thus affecting various communities differently.

SOWK 704—Social Work and the Law [3 credits]
Social Work and the Law is an introduction to the structure and operations of the legal system as it affects social work practice. The course covers several areas closely related to social work: family and domestic matters, child welfare, juvenile justice, mental health, education, and advocacy. Emphasis is on analyzing legislation and court decisions as social policy. The focus includes legal issues relating especially to minors, women, people of color, and other disempowered groups. The course also provides an overview of legal issues bearing upon professional responsibility (such as malpractice, privileged communications, and confidentiality) and offers an introduction to the development of skills used in courtroom testimony.

SOWK 706—Mental Health and Social Policy [3 credits]
This course examines the growth of community mental health in the United States and its relationship to sociological and psychological approaches to various communities and cultural groups. Approaches to mental health, mental illness, problems of service delivery, professional roles, and the possibilities and problems of community mental health are discussed.

SOWK 710—Legislative Process in Social Welfare [3 credits]
This course has two basic purposes. The first is to provide students with an understanding of American legislative processes with particular reference to the social welfare policy formulation system. The federal system of policy and legislative process will also be examined. The second aim is to develop an appreciation and understanding of the range of social work involvement in the policy/legislative process. Throughout the course, attention is given to the role of human service advocacy organizations active in influencing social welfare legislation and the role of social workers in social action.

SOWK 713—Social Policy and Health Care [3 credits]*
This course is designed to prepare students to assess and understand the impact of American medical and health service programs and policies on human well-being. It has several purposes: (1) to understand the political process through which health service delivery policy evolves; (2) to provide students with background on the organization of health care services so that they have some understanding of the origins and current directions of health care programs; (3) to understand the relationship of medical care and health care programs to other community programs and their impact on various communities; and (4) to enable students, as future social workers, to assess and evaluate program directions and proposals for change.

SOWK 715—Children and Social Services Policy [3 credits]*
CSSP is intended to present in-depth the current situation in social services for children as well as a historical perspective on the development of our society’s perception of children’s needs. It attempts to go beyond the traditional definitions of child welfare services as an institution and encompasses consideration of a social services system for children and families of diverse ethnic, racial, and cultural identities that would include family policy, advocacy, programs to enhance socialization, and development of public social utilities. The themes of advocacy run through each part of the course.

SOWK 717—Substance Abuse and Social Policy [3 credits]
This Web-based course provides a comprehensive survey of major policies, regulations, and programs pertaining to alcohol and other drugs in the United States. Following a brief overview of terminology from different systems perspectives (e.g., treatment providers and law enforcement agencies) and a historical survey highlighting policy paradoxes, the course will address the multidimensional impact of substance abuse on individuals, families, organizations, and society at large. Major federal, state, local, and international laws and regulations will be examined in detail. A broad overview of prevention and treatment programs will be covered, especially in terms of the impact of laws and regulations on their implementation. Fiscal aspects of substance abuse treatment will be addressed along with a discussion of implications for the future of substance abuse policies.

SOWK 720/834—Comparative Social Policy [3 credits]*
This seminar is open to doctoral and master’s students who have completed SOWK 600. The course emphasizes the comparative analysis of respective national approaches to social policy provision in a variety of developed and developing nations. It examines different societies and a number of dimensions of the social welfare system: social security, social services, and health care policy. This course initially is concerned with the methodology of comparative analysis. Particular attention is paid to the nature of governmental involvement in social policy, the nature of public/private sector relations, and the assessment of social policy with regard to such analytical concepts as adequacy, equity, and efficiency. It considers theories that relate social policy outcomes to factors such as resource development, ideology, and historical/cultural tendencies.

SOWK 725—Industrial Social Services and Social Policy [3 credits]
A theoretical framework is provided for delivering services in the workplace as well as exploring the value questions and conflicts. This course includes a history of social services in the work arena and a comprehensive picture of the delivery points of human services. Specific services, such as mental health counseling, health promotion, child care, and assistance to people with AIDS, are explored with their respective policy implications. Special employee populations, such as women and culturally diverse populations, are addressed, as well as the appropriate policy questions.

SOWK 726—Aging and Social Policy [3 credits]
This course is designed to provide an empirical and analytical base for understanding the major issues and trends involved in existing and proposed programs and services for older people at federal, state, and local levels. Social service, long-term care, health care, income maintenance programs, and policies for the aging are emphasized. Age-related policies are examined in terms of relevant historical and contemporary forces, the policy objectives involved, distributive impacts, underlying values, including assumptions about older Americans, impact on special populations of older persons, and the administrative structure for service provisions.

<<top

RESEARCH OPTION COURSES
SOWK 772—Evaluation Research [3 credits]
Concepts and approaches for evaluating social interventions, including social work practice, programs, and policies, are considered in this course. Previously acquired research knowledge is built upon for elaborating on the conceptual, methodological, and administrative aspects of evaluation research. The comparative analysis approach used for the development of practice knowledge, as well as for the utilization of evaluation studies is given attention. This course is offered in both Webbased and in-class options.

SOWK 775—Single System Research for Practice [3 credits]
The use of the single unit research approach for the assessment of social work practice with diverse populations in various settings is addressed.

SOWK 777—Research in Child Welfare [3 credits]
This course focuses on the evaluation of interventions in child welfare with particular emphasis on adoption and foster care. Although this course differs considerably from social policy offerings on child welfare issues, no child welfare data are without their practice ramifications. Therefore, a goal of this course is to draw the logic between research findings and the extent to which data are used in the development of child welfare practice.

SOWK 781—Research Methods for Management and Community Practice [3 credits]
This course addresses the research theory and skills necessary for effective social work practice in community organization and development and human services management. Special attention is devoted to social and community survey research methods, action research methodologies, organizational case study, market research, and social program evaluation.

SOWK 783—Qualitative Cross-Cultural Research [3 credits]*
Qualitative research methods are an important part of social work practice. Each student independently conducts a qualitative research project from beginning (formulation of research question and planning) to end (submission of a written research report). An ethnocultural study population and a cultural question for study are selected by the student for the project.

SOWK 789—Independent Research Project [3–6 credits]
This project involves a research project approved by the research sequence and the student’s specialization. An authored or coauthored report of this research is required.

SOWK 799—Master’s Thesis [6 credits]
Research is conducted under the guidance of a three-member faculty committee.

<<top

ADVANCED HUMAN BEHAVIOR COURSES
SOWK 764—Multicultural Perspectives: Implications for Practice [3 credits]*
This course is an intensive examination of the dynamics of racism and other forms of oppression in our society and within ourselves, and how those dynamics are intertwined with social welfare policy and social work practice. The course places racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, and other forms of oppression in the historical and current economic, political, and social context of the United States. It is designed to prepare students to analyze racism, sexism, and ethnocentrism as they operate at the individual, community, and institutional levels, and to understand how they shape the lives of men and women of all backgrounds and identities. A major theme of the course is the social worker’s professional responsibility to help achieve a non-racist, multicultural, and egalitarian society. This course fulfills the diversity requirement.

SOWK 765—The Nature of Health and Illness [3 credits]
A bio-psychosocial model of health and illness is developed in this course, where biological, psychological, social, cultural, and environmental factors and their interactions are explored. A framework of individual and family development is used to study common diseases throughout the life course.

<<top

CLINICAL METHODS COURSES
At least one methods course must be taken concurrently with each semester of advanced clinical field instruction. SOWK 631 and SOWK 636 are the prerequisites unless otherwise specified.

SWCL 700—Paradigms of Clinical Social Work Practice [3 credits] (Prerequisites SOWK 630 and SOWK 635)
Building upon the knowledge, attitude, and skill components of the foundation area, this course seeks to integrate these components with the therapeutic perspectives traditionally associated with the practice of clinical social work. It will demonstrate how a comprehensive bio-psychosocial assessment of the individual can be employed to underpin the provision of a wide range of social services to individuals from diverse backgrounds. Specific attention will be given to individual therapy as a social service that clinical social workers are sanctioned to deliver by our society and our profession. SWCL 700 is required for clinical concentrators.

SWCL 703—Family Therapy [3 credits]
Working with families requires a conceptual base in understanding the importance of transactions and patterns among family members and development of practice application in family therapy techniques with diverse populations. This course extends knowledge in current theory about family interaction and methods of direct intervention in families of various composition, traditional and nontraditional. Among the various theoretical perspectives examined, special emphasis will be placed on structural, strategic, and brief models.

SWCL 705—Clinical Social Work With Addictive Behavior Patterns [3 credits]
This course is designed to teach the clinical social work student: (1) the concepts of addiction as it relates to alcohol and other drugs; (2) basic information concerning selected drugs; (3) current approaches to counseling the chemically dependent client and/or family member; and (4) the role of relevant systems, with emphasis on the family, community, and the workplace, and on how the addictive behavior affects these systems.

SWCL 710—Advanced Group Methods [3 credits] *
This course presents and compares models of group treatment and formulations of the role of group worker(s) in various types of groups. Both constants, based on the regularities of group processes, and variables, based on group purposes, settings, time frames, group composition, and strengths and limitations of group members, are stressed. The influence of ethnoracial identities, age, culture, sexual orientations, gender, and social class on group treatment is studied through the use of a seminar format.

SWCL 711—Clinical Social Work With Children [3 credits]
Relationships, contract-setting, goal-setting, and phases of treatment with children and their families are related to frameworks for assessment and intervention. Diversity of family, culture, and community, and their influences on processes of assessment and treatment of children are presented.

SWCL 712—Clinical Social Work Practice in Relation to Physical Illness Processes [3 credits]
This course focuses on collaborative clinical practice in health care delivery systems and issues that affect the nature of that practice, the roles and functions of social workers in health settings, and those factors that influence human behavior in relation to health maintenance, illness prevention, help-seeking and utilization behavior, adaptation to the sick role and, consequently, social work interventions.

SWCL 714—Social Work Practice in Maternal and Child Health [3 credits]
Covered here are the roles of social workers in maternal and child health, including the history, current status, and functions of the social worker in settings dedicated to the promotion of health of mothers and children. The course discusses the epidemiology and etiology of health problems in this population, as well as available and proposed interventions. The social work role in the multidisciplinary field of maternal and child health is stressed. A family-centered, case management approach is emphasized for guidance of practice.

SWCL 715—Traumatic Stress and Stress Management Techniques [3 credits]
The psychological, physiological, and sociocultural aspects of stress will be taught in this advanced clinical methods course. In addition, traumatic stress, attachment behaviors, and changes in brain structure will be addressed in the first part of this course. During the second part, selected stress management techniques will be explored cognitively and experientially.

SWCL 716—Clinical Social Work With Women: Theory and Practice [3 credits]
This course examines a range of feminist theories and their applications to clinical practice with women. Using a feminist lens, clinical issues of women across the life cycle and women of color are discussed. There is specific attention to eating disorders, intimate partner violence, trauma, depression, and Dialectical Behavorial Therapy with clients with borderline personality disorders.

SWCL 720—Art Therapy in Clinical Social Work Practice [3 credits]
This course explores the principles and techniques of art therapy and considers the usefulness of art therapy in providing alternatives and supplements to the customary verbal methods of intervention. Ways of working with clients at various stages of the life cycle— childhood through old age—and with clients who are on different levels of psychosocial dysfunctioning are examined. Issues in art therapy are explored both cognitively and experientially.

SWCL 722—Cognitive Behavioral Therapies [3 credits]
This course provides an overview of the behavioral approaches to therapy. Students will become familiar with the respondent, operant, social-learning, and cognitive-behavioral models and their applications to individuals, families, and other client groupings. The various settings for behaviorally oriented social work, such as schools, hospitals (behavioral medicine), and others are discussed.

SWCL 723—Couples Counseling [3 credits]
In this course, students will learn to assess and treat troubled couple relationships as they are seen in clinical social work practice. They study how couples’ relationships vary over the life cycle and how couples from diverse backgrounds seek assistance. They learn to focus on strengths as well as problems in couple relationships. The course is taught from a comparative theoretical viewpoint.

SWCL 724—Clinical Social Work With the Aging and Their Families [3 credits]*
A foundation for clinical social work practice with the aged and their families or caretakers from various cultural and community backgrounds is offered. Primary attention is given to formulating assessments from a conceptual framework and devising appropriate interventions. The focus is the aged person in dynamic interplay with the family and other social systems.

SWCL 726—Clinical Social Work With African-American Families [3 credits]*
The overall objective of this course is the presentation of a conceptual framework for understanding and treating the wide range of social problems confronting African-American families. The course is presented from the nondeviant perspective, acknowledging the experiences of African-American families with enslavement, oppression, and institutional racism. Emphasis is on the application and use of clinical knowledge and skills in the assessment/diagnosis and formulation of treatment intervention with African-American individuals and families.

SWCL 727—Clinical Practice With Families and Children in Child Welfare [3 credits]
This clinical methods course focuses on the characteristics, strengths, and service needs of families and children in the child welfare system. The course examines issues and builds practice skills related to family support services, child maltreatment, substitute care, and permanency planning. It considers family events within their ecological context and works to build sensitivity to various family forms and cultural patterns.

SWCL 730—Clinical Social Work in Relation to Chronic Mental Illness [3 credits]
This course is designed to enhance a student’s understanding of how to practice effectively with clients with chronic mental health problems, such as schizophrenia, major mood disorders, and personality disorders. Areas of practice include working in psychosocial rehabilitation programs, designing and implementing treatment plans, designing and implementing case management strategies, and interdisciplinary work with psychiatrists and nurses in community mental health centers and inpatient psychiatric wards.

SWCL 731—Interdisciplinary Team Practice [3 credits]
This course focuses on the roles and functions of interdisciplinary teams and the impact of this care model on the consumer, family, health care system, and the team itself. The unique health care needs of consumers in rural settings will be highlighted. The students will collaborate in problem-solving and decision-making within a team model and identify the advantages and disadvantages of a team approach. The systems theory orientation for understanding human functioning and the application of this orientation to issues and situations in rehabilitation health care settings will be emphasized. The implications of team practice on accountability, risk management, and quality improvement will be discussed. Strategies for assessing the essential components of team function (context, structure, processes, and outcome) will be addressed, including specific techniques for team maintenance and enhancement.

SWCL 732 Spirituality and Religion in Clinical Social Work [3 credits]
This course examines spirituality as a guiding force in the lives of individuals, families, groups, and communities. It is offered to aid in the development of practitioners who will be reflective of and responsive to the diversity of spiritual values, ethics, and principles.

SWCL 744—Psychopathology [3 credits] (Prerequisites: SOWK 630 and SOWK 635)
This course is designed to provide the student with extensive knowledge of the major forms of emotional illness and their treatment. Students will develop competence in diagnosis by mastering the currently accepted diagnostic code (DSM-IVR). They will develop competence in treatment planning through awareness and understanding of the most modern and accepted treatments for each major category of mental illness. Upon successful completion of the course, the student will be able to gather and analyze relevant information, make accurate diagnoses based upon that information, assess positive and negative factors affecting treatment decisions, develop an appropriate and contemporary treatment plan, and present it in a form consistent with current practice in the mental health professions. Students will be prepared for diagnosis and treatment planning activities appropriate to a variety of clinical settings. This course is offered both on campus and on the Web. This course is required for clinical concentrators.

SWCL 745—Introduction to Psychopharmacology [1 credit]
The psychopharmacology course is taught collaboratively by faculty from the School of Social Work and the School of Pharmacy. The course is designed to provide clinical social work students with the basic concepts of the chemical effectiveness of various pharmaceuticals in the treatment of specific mental disorders as well as an enhanced awareness of the role of social work in relation to clients needing prescription psychotropic medication. The differences between specific drug categories and their predictable effectiveness and current approaches to prescribing pharmaceuticals will be covered.

SWCL 746—Introduction to Clinical Social Work and Bereavement [1 credit]
This course will review the stages of grief and loss, present beginning information on facilitating uncomplicated grief reactions, and explore traumatic losses including suicide, homicide, and the death of a child. It will also teach introductory skills in intervening in bereavement group situations, discuss the unique grief reactions of children, and introduce the cultural components of death in the bereavement process.

SWCL 747—Introduction to Forensic Social Work [3 credits]
Forensic social work is the application of social work to questions and issues relating to law and legal systems. This social work specialty involves practice with victims and defendants in thecriminal justice system, child custody, termination of parental rights and divorce mediation in the civil law area, and CINA (Child in Need of Assistance) and delinquency in the juvenile court. This five-week, one-credit class will focus on forensic social work within the criminal justice system.

SWCL 748—Clinical Social Work Practice in Relation to Death, Dying, and Bereavement* [3 credits]
This course provides a framework of knowledge, skills, and values for cultivating competent and responsive social work practice in helping clients who confront the issues of death and dying.

SWCL 749—Clinical Social Work With Gay and Lesbian Clients* [3 credits]
This course will give students opportunities to learn about effective assessment and intervention techniques for clients who identify themselves as gay and lesbian. A lifespan approach will be taken as individual couple, family, and group modalities are discussed. The students own biases and values will be explored.

SWCL 750—School Social Work [3 credits]
School social work is a practice specialty focused on enhancing student achievement in the public school setting. School social workers provide a vital linkage between school and families. The coursework will cover interventions for the public school community.

SWCL 751—Psychodynamic Social Work [3 credits]
In this course, students will study the four psychologies of conflict theory, ego psychology, object relations, and self-psychology. Current relational theories, attachment research, and neurobiology will be addressed. Applications to clients from diverse settings, developmental stages, and socio-cultural backgrounds will be included. Finally, students will learn the basic assessment, treatment, and termination skills using psychodynamic techniques.

SWOA 702—Social Planning and Social Change [3 credits]
Social Planning and Social Change is a methods course guided by the principles of social and economic justice that prepares students to address social problems at macro levels of intervention. Targets of change include an organization, a neighborhood, the city, the county, a state, a nation, or the international arena. Urban, rural, and regional perspectives are considered. Students learn to use the technical skills of planning to help create systemic communityoriented solutions to a wide array of critical issues for special populations. These may include affordable, service-enriched housing for diverse populations such as the elderly, the homeless, or victims of domestic violence; access to health and human services for underserved populations such as immigrant children and families; and the citing of community-based treatment facilities for people with drug addictions, mental illness, or both. Students use planning theory to inform community practice so that skills in research, community organizing, management, communications, collaboration, and political advocacy are integrated.

SWOA 703—Program Management [3 credits] (Prerequisites: Permission of Dr. Hopkins or Dr. Mulroy and SOWK 635 and SOWK 630, with communities and organizations content in the second module)
Program Management, a methods course, provides students with a general introduction to the knowledge and skills necessary to manage human services organizations, departments, programs, and/or services. It examines the structures and processes of human service organizations, the processes of management, and organization building. Students learn various functions of management from an internal and external perspective. This course provides opportunities for students to build competencies and skills in each functional area through practical application. This course (and SWOA 704) is required of all MACO concentrators.

SWOA 704—Community Organization [3 credits]* (Prerequisites: Permission of Dr. Hopkins or Dr. Mulroy and SOWK 635 and SOWK 630, with communities and organizations content in the second module)
This methods course in community organization is aimed at students who want to expand and refine their skills in organization building and collective action. It builds on foundation knowledge and skills from the prerequisite introductory level practice courses in the curriculum. This course is particularly relevant to direct practice with advocacy for disempowered groups in society, such as ethnic, racial and other minorities, low-income people, women, the aged, and the disabled. This course is required of all MACO concentrators.

SWOA 705—Community Economic Development [3 credits]
This course helps students build upon, expand, and refine their organizational development and capacity-building skills. The course covers a number of themes, including small communities, factors leading to the health or decline of communities, community economic development (CED) strategies, community development corporations (CDC), advocacy and development organizing, various action programs, and social development strategies. Specific knowledge, skills, and values will be discussed in relation to these themes. Ethnically sensitive practice principles will be woven into class discussions on a regular basis.

SWOA 706—Multicultural Practice in Organizations and Communities [3 credits]*
This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of multicultural practice in organizational and community settings. It examines concepts and techniques of multicultural macro practice and considers and evaluates relevant strategies and tactics that promote multiculturalism, including pluralistic coalition building, empowerment processes, intercultural communication, diversity training, and cross-cultural supervision. This course will help prepare students for the roles that social workers can expect to serve in building a multicultural society. This course fulfills the diversity requirement.

SWOA 721—Human Resources Management [3 credits]
This course stresses the interdependence of the personnel management process with other managerial processes and provides content related to personnel practices. The essential nature of the personnel system, including the process of recruitment, selection, development, and utilization of human resources, is emphasized. Focus is on the development of professional social work managers to assume the responsibility for personnel management processes in complex organization. The knowledge, beliefs, and values of social work will provide the necessary underpinnings for the study of these management processes.

SWOA 722—Supervision in Social Work [3 credits]
This course is available as an elective to clinical students who have completed the Foundation Curriculum. Students are introduced to the historical development of supervision within social work. They acquire and apply knowledge of three primary supervisory tasks: administration, education, and support of supervisees. The course also covers different supervisory approaches and techniques and considers supervisory issues that arise in various practice settings.

SWOA 724—Managing Financial and Information Systems in Human Services Organizations [3 credits]
The goal of the course is to introduce students to the elements of financial management and design of information systems in human service organizations. In addition to learning the elements of financial and information management through readings and class presentations, students will also gain beginning skills through assigned exercises. Throughout the course, students will be encouraged to integrate their experience and training as social workers and as administrators with the concepts, options, and techniques of financial management. Prerequisites: SOWK 630, 631, 632, 635, 636.

SWOA 732—Resource Development for Nonprofit Groups [3 credits]
Nonprofit organizations operate in a climate of increasingly scarce resources. In recent years, because of government cutbacks, many charitable agencies have had to curtail services, merge, or go out of business. As a result, nonprofits have had to seek new avenues for funding and other needed resources. This course explores the resource climate of nonprofit voluntary organizations, identifies different ways of acquiring resources, and develops knowledge of and skill in a variety of techniques. The techniques reviewed include marketing, grant development, workplace fundraising, direct mail, telephone, face-to-face solicitation, and earned income from operations.

SWOA 735—Social Work and Social Action [3 credits]
This course examines the origin, structure, methodology, and theory of social movements. It also focuses on the organizing methods and processes used in various social movements to bring about social change. Close attention is paid to the causes and crystallization of protests, the genesis, growth, maintenance of movements, the strategies and tactics required to achieve social goals, and the institutionalization of social change. Where appropriate, current and historical examples of major social movements—such as the civil rights, feminist, labor, and welfare rights movements—are studied in terms of their theoretical foundations or operational mechanisms. Emphasis throughout the course, however, is on the skills and processes needed to bring about change.

SWOA 736—Administering Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) [3 credits]
This course presents a conceptual framework for administering programs based on administration theory. Similarities with administering other social service programs are consistently brought to the student’s attention, but the uniqueness of administering EAPs is emphasized. Topics such as policy development, case management, supervisory training, marketing, and evaluating programs from a cost-effective approach are covered. Various managerial models for different employee situations are analyzed. Special populations in the workplace, especially women and minorities, are discussed as requiring particular administrative and strategic approaches to EAPs.

<<top

ADVANCED FIELD INSTRUCTION
Field Instruction Courses—Two consecutive semesters in a fall-spring sequence. Methods courses appropriate for the concentration must be taken concurrently with each semester of field instruction.

SWCL 794, 795—Advanced Clinical Field Practicum [6 credits each semester]
Two semesters in the Advanced Curriculum. Assignment to agencies and organizations for practice responsibilities and instruction in clinical social work.

SWOA 794, 795—Management and Community Organization Advanced Field Practicum [6 credits each semester]
This practicum involves two semesters in the Advanced Curriculum. Students are assigned to social welfare organizations and agencies for practice responsibilities and instruction in social administration, human services, and community organization and development.

<<top

OTHER ELECTIVE COURSES
SOWK 705—International Social Work [1-2 credits]
Comparative studies of social work practice provide instruments for better understanding the general laws of social life and opportunities for examining practice trends and issues in a clearer perspective. This course focuses on the study of the social work profession and practice in specified developed and developing nations. This course is taken in conjunction with the biannual trip to India (other destinations are possible).

SOWK 798—Independent Study [1-3 credits]
A student-selected topic is studied under the guidance of a faculty member.

SWCL 796—Summer Clinical Field Instruction Elective [3 credits]
This elective involves 24 hours of practice per week for eight weeks in
the summer.

<<top

WEB-BASED COURSES
Five courses are offered on the Web: SOWK 600, SOWK 670, SOWK 717, SOWK 772, and SWCL 744. Students must fulfill the requirements for these courses during the semester in which they are enrolled in the course. Class work and chat rooms are asynchronous, that is, students do not have to log on at a specific time.

<<top

Quick Links