School of Social Welfare

Terms offered: Summer 2013 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2012 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2011 Second 6 Week Session
This course will consider the U.S. social welfare system in comparison with systems in other parts of the world, including Japan, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. It will examine the history and role of "welfare," "the welfare state," and the social work profession in the U.S. and in other countries and will consider key issues in contemporary social work practice. Topics such as discrimination, economic deprivation, and oppression and their effects on people of color, women, and gay and lesbian people will be highlighted.
An Introduction to American Social Welfare in World Context: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
Supervised experience relevant to specific aspects of social welfare in off-campus non-profit and governmental organizations.
Field Studies in Social Welfare: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2018, Fall 2017
Group study on selected social welfare topics. Open to freshmen and sophomores.
Group Study in Social Welfare: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
Berkeley Connect is a mentoring program, offered through various academic departments, that helps students build intellectual community. Over the course of a semester, enrolled students participate in regular small-group discussions facilitated by a graduate student mentor (following a faculty-directed curriculum), meet with their graduate student mentor for one-on-one academic advising, attend lectures and panel discussions featuring department faculty and alumni, and go on field trips to campus resources. Students are not required to be declared majors in order to participate.
Berkeley Connect in Social Welfare: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2021 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2020 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2019 Second 6 Week Session
This course introduces students to the purpose, functions, and programs of the public child welfare system in the United States, with a particular focus on California, in a historical context, and with an emphasis on social justice and diversity concerns in policy-making and service delivery. The course explores U.S. child welfare history/historical traumas, cultural and diversity issues, ethical considerations, mandated reporting of suspected child maltreatment, family and kinship supports, allied community services, causes for child removals and returns to families, judicial involvement, sibling-group placements, foster care, emancipation from the system, first-person guest speaker accounts, and policy-level interventions.
Introduction to Child Welfare in California and the U.S.: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
Course explores the role of philanthropy, foundations, and proposal development in American society. A grant writing exercise in a Bay Area community agency is required.
Foundations, Philanthropy, and the Social Services: Grant Writing for Program Development: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
This course examines social work as a profession: the practice of the profession, the organizational context of professional practice, and the ethics of the profession.
Social Work As a Profession: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
Analysis of social welfare policies and programs including public assistance, social insurance, social services, and health and mental health.
Social Welfare Policy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
This course introduces students to basic social work practice skills through the generalist intervention model. Both direct and indirect practice methods are introduced. Students are exposed to both theory and research that informs understanding of client system’s strengths, problem development, and intervention. Biophysical, psychological, environmental, social, and cultural contributions to effective and ethical social work assessment and intervention with individuals, families, and communities experiencing a range of challenges will be examined. Requires concurrent enrollment in discussion section.
Practice in Social Work: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Fall 2022
Course examines current problems and issues in the field of social welfare.
Current Topics in Social Welfare: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2016
The course will address issues of homelessness in the context of social responsibility for the poor and definitions of poverty and need. It will consider the legal, social, and economic context of homelessness. It will look at homelessness as a full-time job of survival, exploring the prospects of the homeless for changing their condition. The course will look at the diversity of the homeless, their special needs, handicaps, and behaviors. It will explore the newly institutionalized system of caring for the homeless, its problems, and prospects. Included for consideration will be government-supported and private programs for housing and social services as well as new ways for addressing the homelessness problem through the child welfare, housing, health, mental health, and substance abuse treatment systems.
Homelessness in America: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This Service Learning Course is designed to provide an opportunity for undergraduates to gain practice experience in a community-based agency, while simultaneously familiarizing themselves with research and the research process. Students will develop learning objectives in line with basic social work practice skills at the same time that they will become keen observers of the practice setting and/or practice dynamics within or around the agency.
Social Work Practicum: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2022 First 6 Week Session
This seminar will focus on the relationship between the field of social work and sports at a macro and micro level in American society. The course will explore ways in which the field of social work, and social workers, can better support athletes to promote positive change throughout the lives of athletes as well as the sports industry. Additionally, this course offers a space for students/educators/community members to cultivate interventions that address prominent issues within the sports world. We will interrogate a range of prominent issues such as anti-Blackness, coloniality, capitalism, race/ism, sex/ism, patriarchy, masculinity/femininity, misogyny/noir, queerphobia, fatphobia, beauty standards, pregnancy, mental health, and more.
Introduction into Social Work, Sports, and Social Justice: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2021 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2020 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2019 First 6 Week Session
Provides an overview of theoretical perspectives and practice models in the substance abuse field. Addresses issues of misuse and addiction, impacts on the family, and the range of intervention modalities including prevention and treatment. Students will also become familiar with alcohol and drug related problems including mental disorders, HIV/AIDS, and criminal behavior.
Substance Abuse Treatment: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2020, Fall 2019
Course examines the development of race and ethnic relations in the U.S., emphasizing relevant social welfare themes.
Race, Ethnic Relations, and Social Welfare in the United States: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2020 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2016 10 Week Session, Summer 2015 First 6 Week Session
This course introduces the developmental, psychological and environmental issues related to sexuality at different stages in life, and in different social service venues. It includes an introduction to the strengths perspective, exploration of heterosexist aspects of society, policies related to a person’s sexuality and gender, and ethics and diversity issues often arising in work with sexual minorities. Variability within sexual culture is addressed, introducing students to the strengths of the LGBT community, the experience of growing up and discovering sexuality, and how research and practice models define homosexuality in relation to human sexuality and development. Issues of sexuality in specific social work settings are addressed.
Sexuality and Social Work: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2020 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2013 10 Week Session, Summer 2013 Second 6 Week Session
This course is an introduction to the complex dynamics of US immigration policy. Intended and unintended consequences will be examined alongside sociopolitical factors driving the expansion of punitive responses to the movement of bodies across borders. Historical foundations of “deterrent” policies will be considered, including the influence of racism and discrimination in the pre- and post-civil rights eras. Issues of criminality, mobility, national security, privatization, and reform will also be explored. Informed by the NASW Code of Ethics, this course adopts a critical, action-oriented approach relevant to those interested in practice with individuals and families, community organizing, legislative advocacy, and beyond.
Immigration Control and the Criminalization of Immigration in the United States: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024
This a survey course intended to introduce the theoretical underpinnings, structure, and major components of two major U.S. institutions: the criminal legal system and the U.S. welfare state. The course offers an overview of the relationship between contemporary social welfare policies affecting low-income families in the United States with attention to how the criminal legal system further marginalizes already vulnerable populations.
Poverty, Social Welfare, and Carceral Systems: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2017, Spring 2016
In this interdisciplinary course students examine the relationships among social science, law, and crime prevention policy. Emphasis is placed on how psychological science (clinical, developmental, social) can inform decisions about individuals at high risk for repeated involvement in the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Topics of focus include risk assessment, adolescent development and juvenile justice, and prevention/intervention/correctional psychology. Students will have an opportunity to master a specific problem area. Broadly, goals are for students to a) become comfortable in translating crime prevention problems into social scientific questions, and b) specifically understand how research findings can inform law and policy.
Social Science and Crime Prevention Policy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2021, Spring 2020
In this interdisciplinary course students examine the relationships among social science, law, and crime prevention policy. Emphasis is placed on how psychological science (clinical, developmental, social) can inform decisions about individuals at high risk for repeated involvement in the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Topics of focus include risk assessment, adolescent development and juvenile justice, and prevention/intervention/correctional psychology. Students will have an opportunity to master a specific problem area. Broadly, goals are for students to a) become comfortable in translating crime prevention problems into social scientific questions, and b) specifically understand how research findings can inform law and policy.
Social Science & Crime Prevention Policy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2020, Spring 2017
This course introduces students to the long history of the prison in the American experience, and does so by engaging ideas, movements, and practices to craft worlds of care and mutuality beyond the harms that the prison produces and legitimates. Taking a broad interdisciplinary approach, the course engages with the full range of “carceral geographies” in which social life is penetrated with the state’s power to surveil, arrest, judge, and punish its citizens; as well as the “abolition geographies” that, in Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s terms, combine resources, creativity, and commitment to create freedom as a place where all life/lives are precious.
Prison Abolition: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Taking a broad interdisciplinary approach, this course embraces the longue duree of critical prison studies, questioning the shadows of normality that cloak mass incarceration both across the globe and, more particularly, in the contemporary United States. This course thus explores a series of visceral, unsettling juxtapositions: "freedom" and "slavery"; "citizenship" and "subjugation"; "marginalization" and "inclusion", in each case explicating the ways that story making, political demagoguery, and racial, class, and sexual inequalities have wrought an untenable social condition.
Prison: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2021 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2020 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2019 First 6 Week Session
This course will investigate the phenomenon of domestic violence in the United States from historical, psychological, sociological, anthropological, legal, feminist, and cross-cultural perspectives. We will study the impact this social problem has on families, relevant theories of causation, the merits of related services and interventions, and the experiences of diverse populations.
Domestic Violence: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Spring 2020, Fall 2019
Preparation of an honors thesis.
Senior Honors Course: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019, Spring 2019, Fall 2018
Supervised experience relevant to specific aspects of social welfare in off-campus organizations. Regular individual meetings with faculty sponsor and written reports required.
Field Studies in Social Welfare: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2019, Spring 2019
Group study on selected social welfare topics.
Group Study for Advanced Undergraduates: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
Berkeley Connect is a mentoring program, offered through various academic departments, that helps students build intellectual community. Over the course of a semester, enrolled students participate in regular small-group discussions facilitated by a graduate student mentor (following a faculty-directed curriculum), meet with their graduate student mentor for one-on-one academic advising, attend lectures and panel discussions featuring department faculty and alumni, and go on field trips to campus resources. Students are not required to be declared majors in order to participate.
Berkeley Connect in Social Welfare: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
Enrollment is restricted by regulations specified in the
Supervised Independent Study and Research: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
This course examines the foundations of social work practice theories and strategies for connecting theory and practice. It provides an overview of the impact of the social environment, the impact of the “ecology” of human behavior and the way social institutions and practices provide structure over the life course. Practice implications are explored in terms of assessing client social and psychological needs. The course covers biophysical perspectives, crisis and intervention, cognitive-behavioral theories, systems/ecological frameworks, social psychological theories, social constructionism, humanism and existentialism, critical race and conflict theories, multilevel practice theories, and examination of individual and group differences.
Theories for Multilevel Practice: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
Developmental abnormalities and deviations which result in dysfunctional behavior in the individual. Examines problems and disorders of children and adults from psychological and social perspectives.
Psychosocial Problems and Psychopathology: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2016, Fall 2015, Fall 2014
Descriptions, measurements, and major theories concerning the etiology of stress and coping in the adult (25-60) years.
Stress and Coping in Adulthood: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021
Topics and issues in infant development, including infant mental health, parent-child relationships, behavior assessment, predictors of disturbance, and intervention with high risk infants.
Infant Development: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Fall 2021
Sociological, psychological, physiological, and cultural factors relevant to understanding the complexity of the aging process. Normative and maladaptive aspects of the aging process are examined in terms of their implications for personal and societal adaptation.
A Multilevel Approach to Working with Older Adults: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Fall 2021
Course examines theories of group, organization, and community dynamics. Topics include group leadership and decision-making, organizational goals, structure, and change, and community power and demographics.
Group, Organizational, and Community Dynamics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Summer 2023 First 6 Week Session, Spring 2023
This course examines the bio-psycho-social development of children and adolescents as a basis for understanding 1) cognitive and affective developments allowing the child to construct individual and social life at increasingly complex levels of differentiation and affiliation; 2) use of developmental levels as paradigms for healthy functioning; 3) a range of childhood experiences impacting well-being and development; and 4) the utility of normal child development as a heuristic for understanding developmental theories of bio-psycho-social difficulties. Particular focus on issues of self- regulation, internal representation, affect, cognition, relatedness, and separation. All of these themes are illustrated through practice application.
Child Development from Infancy to Adolescence in Its Social Context: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
This course introduces key issues in social welfare policy and recent trends shaping the development of the American welfare state. This is a foundation policy course for first-year MSW students.
Foundations of Social Welfare Policy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Introduction to current problems, programs, and policies in child, youth, and family welfare.
Social Policy: Children and Families: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
This course examines the intersection between social work practice and the educational system. It focuses on the school as a social system and the current policy context of education. It presents current topics in educational policy and critically analyzes them from a social work perspective. A focus is placed on the potential roles played not only by school social workers, but the social work profession in general, in actively collaborating with educational systems to support optimal developmental pathways for children and adolescents.
Social Work and Education Policy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2023 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2022 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2021 First 6 Week Session
This course examines the intersection between social work practice and the educational system. It focuses on the school as a social system and the current policy context of education. It presents current topics in educational policy and critically analyzes them from a social work perspective. A focus is placed on the potential roles played not only by school social workers, but the social work profession in general, in actively collaborating with educational systems to support optimal developmental pathways for children and adolescents. The web-based version (SOC WEL W232) is conducted entirely online.
Social Work and Education Policy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Reviews major issues and programs in the health care field. Course considers the social context of health care; the roles of the public, voluntary, and private sectors; and the implications of policies and programs for society and the individual client.
Health Policy--A Social Welfare Perspective: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
Introduction to masters-level education in social work and to the intellectual, historical, sociopolitical, and ethical foundations of the U.S. social work profession. Through examination of the profession’s framing values, history, contextual influences, and current directions in a global society, students will begin to develop an orientation to practice, research, and policy-making informed by professional ethics and obligations and anchored in a commitment to plurality and social justice. Students will be oriented to social work professional ethics and ethical decision-making, and to social justice as the framing value for social work practice.
Anti-Oppressive Frameworks for Social Work Ethics and Justice: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
SW 241, Foundations of Multi-Level Practice, is designed to introduce knowledge and skills needed for engagement, assessment, and intervention planning for social work practice with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities, guided by the principles of strength-based, evidence-informed, ecologically-grounded, and justice promoting practice.
Foundations of Multilevel Practice: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2001
The course aims to equip students with knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for serving those who access psychosocial services via culturally responsive, anti‐oppressive, and evidence‐informed social work practice. Students will learn relational concepts and theory that underpin effective engagement, assessment and intervention planning. We will also be learning about how to work with existing knowledge, even with its limitations, and discussing how we can extract value from knowledge that wasn’t created with and for marginalized communities. Time will be balanced between knowledge domains, practice skill domains, and self-reflection.
Foundations of Multilevel Practice: Assessment & Intervention Planning with Individuals and Families: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2002
In this course, students will develop skills in assessing groups, organizations, and communities and in engaging stakeholders within the community to enact needed change. This course provides an overview of the roles of groups, organizations, and communities in shaping the social environment and of factors that influence group, organizational, and community behavior. Students will also learn how organizations function in human services.
Foundations of Multilevel Practice: Assessment & Intrvn Planning w Groups Organizations Communities: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Direct intervention models for addressing the behavioral, emotional, and situational problems of children and families in child welfare, mental health, medical, school, and community settings.
Direct Practice in Child and Family Settings: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2020
Knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for serving those who use mental health services via culturally responsive, recovery sensitive, and evidence-based practice. Students will learn theoretical concepts underpinning a range of interventions; and the appropriate selection and application of given interventions. Emphasis on acquisition of skills and knowledge relevant to treating individuals encountered in diverse behavioral health systems, and their application to social work practice. Exploration of relational, cognitive behavioral, and trauma-informed theories.
Direct Practice in Community Behavioral Health and Recovery Services across the Adult Life Span: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021
Practice methods course emphasizing in-depth understanding and application of clinical methods frequently utilized in health care-related settings and across the age span. Curriculum modules include bio-psychosocial assessment; intervention; and transition from care. Ethics in health care settings, complementary therapeutic services, and patient advocacy are also covered. Aging-specific issues, ethical dilemmas, interdisciplinary conflicts, human diversity issues, system of care conflicts and limitations, and a wide range of illnesses and disabilities and health settings will be threaded throughout the course.
Direct Practice in Health Settings across the Adult Life Span: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
Clinical case management with older adults. Comprehensive multidimensional assessment, advocacy and empowerment, and the range of direct intervention models for addressing the physical, cognitive, and psychosocial concerns of older adults and their families.
Direct Practice in Aging Settings: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2017, Fall 2015
Theory and practice regarding the formation, sustenance, and termination of groups. Emphasis on the role of the social worker in facilitating inter-personal processes in groups.
Social Work with Groups: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
Theoretical frameworks and intervention skills for family work.
Family Therapy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
Background and origins of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT). Covers major tenets of SFBT including: maintaining a positive, “not-knowing”, respectful collaborative stance, focusing on strengths and previous solutions, looking for exceptions and using questions (versus directives or interpretations). Students will learn how to implement SFBT in clinical practice. Students will become proficient in using specific solution-focused interventions applicable across various populations, in differing contexts (including case management), and across social work settings, including larger systems such as agencies and communities.
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2014, Spring 2014
This course will provide students with the knowledge and skills needed to communicate effectively with monolingual Spanish speaking clients and perform effective and responsible social work practice assessments and interventions. The seminar will be conducted in Spanish and will expose students to the language utilized by social workers and other human service providers in a variety of settings.
Essential Spanish for Social Workers: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
This graduate-level course prepares social workers in training and students in allied fields to provide culturally sensitive and competent services to members of major U.S. Latino populations. The course is designed to enhance cultural sensitivity by using multiple relevant social science theories and frameworks to teach about social and cultural experiences of U.S. Latinos; to enhance culturally competent practice skills by teaching a comprehensive Latino practice model; and to provide a selective review of best/promising practices for various psychosocial and health problems within Latino populations. Latino diversity is addressed from a social justice perspective, emphasizing undocumented Latinos and immigration policy issues.
Social Work with Latino Populations: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2014, Spring 2012, Spring 2011
Using a theoretical framework grounded in the values of self-determination, dignity, and respect, this course will address issues in the disabilities field including demographics, etiology, policy and programs, and the disability resources network. Practice skills in communications, assessment, and micro- and macro-level intervention will be reviewed.
Social Work and Disability: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2020
This course will provide a forum for the exploration of multiple issues related to human sexuality and the diversity of sexual experience, including the human sexual response cycle; childhood and adolescent sexuality development; sexual problems, causes and treatment approaches (including systems approaches to working with couples); sexual orientation and gender identity development; sexuality and living with a disability; sexual violence and consent; sexuality and HIV/AIDS; and the law and ethics related to professional sexual misconduct and boundary violations. Teaching methods will include interactive lecture, small group discussions, video presentations, and guest speakers from throughout the Bay Area who specialize in a range of sexuality issues.
Human Sexuality: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
This course explores death and dying from a variety of perspectives: psychological, philosophical, cultural, spiritual, and phenomenological. Emphasis is placed on understanding the experiences of dying persons and their loved ones, as well as the interplay between the process of dying and the process of living. Implications for social work interventions are discussed. This course is both academic and experiential, relying on a wide variety of materials: autobiography, fiction, scholarly and theoretical writings, case examples, films, poetry, and guest lectures.
Death and Dying: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
This course is designed for students preparing for careers in public child welfare. Addresses the range of documentation required for legal purposes, practice issues for social workers within the court setting, and skills required in presenting testimony.
Public Child Welfare Services: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Summer 2023 First 6 Week Session, Fall 2022
This course (1) provides students with an understanding of how current educational policies and practices impact the day-to-day lives of academically and socially vulnerable students; (2) builds student skills in identifying and selecting the multiple points of intervention relevant to social work practice in schools, including individual intervention with children, family intervention, building links between families and school staff, advocacy, classroom-based intervention, and collaboration with teachers; and (3) presents assessment and intervention strategies guided by an ecosystemic and resilience perspective which focus on student and family strengths and suggests multiple intervention options.
Social Work Practice in School Settings: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
Course provides an introductory overview of various theories and methodologies currently used in the diagnosis and treatment of substance abuse disorders. Though the bulk of the course will be devoted to the disease model and corresponding interventions, some attention will be given to prevention and epidemiology. Emphasis will be placed on the unique practice role of social work in the prevention/intervention of substance abuse problems.
Substance Abuse Treatment: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2015
This practice-oriented course will teach graduate level social work students how to engage, assess, and intervene effectively with individuals, families, and children impacted by intimate partner violence. We will review the scope, impact, and causes of the problem; relevant screening and assessment skills; effective clinical intervention paradigms and techniques for victims, perpetrators, and children; and future directions. Significant time will be devoted to examining this problem in disadvantaged and diverse populations and, identifying emotional coping strategies for the developing clinician.
Domestic Violence: Assessment and Intervention: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2013, Fall 2012
This seminar focuses on the theory and practice of social development and, in particular, engages members of the seminar in an analysis of the social development practice strategies that are now widely used in community settings not only in the developing but in the western countries as well. The course is primarily designed for MSW students who have an interest in issues of development and international social welfare, but doctoral and undergraduate students may enroll.
International Social Development: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
The purpose of this course is to increase students' understanding of and competencies in cognitive-behavior methods. Throughout the course practice decisions and related research will be closely integrated. Although further guided experience will be needed to develop high levels of related skills, especially concerning assessment and relationship factors as these are needed to maximize success, students will have the opportunity to develop a beginning understanding of basic behavior principles.
Cognitive Behavioral Methods: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
This is a required practice course for students in the Management and Planning concentration. Using a community-based service delivery framework, the purpose of the course is to provide the competency and skill set necessary for effective program design including task group management, community engagement, and collaborative resource development. The course will focus on designing community-wide interventions in a diverse society through analyzing social problems, identifying community capacities and needs, developing effectiveness-based programs, and conducting evaluation.
Program Development: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
This required Management and Planning practice course builds upon the conceptual and critical thinking skills found in the foundation MAP courses in order to focus on strategic management and leading skills in this course. It is designed to introduce students to the distinctive role of the manager in public and nonprofit human service organizations. Drawing on the management sciences and social work practice in administration, this seminar-style course focuses on a range of managerial processes with special attention to the analytical and interpersonal aspects of program implementation. The course is built upon the three domains identified in research on program management: leadership roles; analytic roles; and interactional roles.
Program Implementation: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2022, Spring 2021
This course focuses on sharpening students’ skills in policy practice, so that they can serve as more effective change agents in their organizational, systems, and policy environments. In social work, policy practice typically entails proposing or enacting policy change in legislative, regulatory, agency, and/or community settings to enhance social and economic justice.
Policy Practice in Social Work: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
Introduction to the theory and practice of community organization.
Community Organizing: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
This course provides both theoretical knowledge and practical skills for managing scarce resources in social service organizations. Students will learn tools and techniques for effective planning and budgeting as well as how to design information systems to control, evaluate, and revise plans. Accounting principles and systems will be examined from a management perspective with an emphasis on designing systems to meet the unique management information needs of different organizations. The use and development of internal and external financial statements will be covered. Students will learn the tools and techniques of financial statement analysis, interpretation, and presentation. The course is designed to develop the core financial management skills needed by senior and middle managers in large and small social service organizations.
Financial Management: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Spring 2020
Focuses on issues arising within the practice of forensic social work in correctional settings (jails, prisons, and probation and parole departments), especially practice with people whose social positions and/or mental health struggles render them disproportionately affected by incarceration. Uses a person-in-environment perspective to explore the phenomenology of corrections, paying particular attention to the intersection of social identities and psychological capacities among individuals who are incarcerated, the complexities of the systems within which social workers attempt to create change, and the historical and contemporary role of incarceration in the United States.
Forensic Social Work: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024
This online, asynchronous course introduces the interdisciplinary field of critical disability studies, which considers the political, ethical, and cultural factors that shape and define impairment and disability. Critical realism and the social model of disability frame this course and make important distinguishes between the concepts of impairment and disability. An examination of individual and group differences will be highlighted throughout, as well as perspectives on how power, privilege, oppression, and societal structures impact health and well-being of disabled peoples.
Critical Disability: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
Students in this practice course will be introduced to the foundation of integrated behavioral health practice, including population-based screening instruments and functional assessment for use in primary care. Students will become familiar with primary care medical culture and psychopharmacological interventions for depression and anxiety. A main emphasis of this class is skill acquisition in evidence-based behavioral interventions for a variety of conditions commonly seen in IBH settings. These include: behavioral activation, mindfulness relaxation strategies, sleep-hygiene techniques, and problem solving treatment
Social Work Practice in Integrated Behavioral Health Care: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024
This 12 week course focuses on equipping students with knowledge about systemic social and emotional learning (SEL) and practical strategies to promote adult well-being and equitable, evidence-based SEL among school-aged children and youth. The Course is designed for classroom teachers who work directly with Pre K-12th grade students. The course will survey a spectrum of assets-based, accessible methods to develop local strategies that promote positive relationships and improve conditions for learning to make schools centers of social and emotional well-being. Major topics of exploration include: the field’s history, purpose, research-base, and role in promoting educational equity; personal and community well-being among educators.
Social and Emotional Learning Foundations: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
Motivational interviewing (MI) is a modern clinical paradigm that dialectically integrates humanistic, client-centered principles with goal-focused strategies. Students in this course will be introduced to all key aspects of MI including its major tenets, its theoretical base, the available empirical evidence on its efficacy, and its overall compatibility with social work. Moreover, students will learn all of the associated clinical skills for the four processes of motivational interviewing: 1) engaging; 2) focusing; 3) evoking; and 4) deciding and planning.
Motivational Interviewing: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2023, Summer 2022 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2022
Narrative therapy is a natural choice in the practice of social work, as it rejects pathology as the main focus of treatment. This class provides an introductory exploration of the narrative approach to therapy as developed by Michael White and David Epston. Students will consider how to apply narrative practices as a potential intervention for individuals, families and communities; and explore possibilities for appropriately adapting narrative interventions in social work service settings. Students will be encouraged to explore if and how Narrative Therapy has the potential to reinforce already existing therapeutic culturally-rooted practices like dance, storytelling, myths, poetry, spirituality and music.
Narrative Practices with Vulnerable Populations: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
The overarching aim of this course is to explore multilevel approaches for recognizing, understanding, and responding to the effects of complex trauma. We will apply the best available knowledge and evidence to inform engagement, assessment, and intervention approaches within and across persons and populations at various levels of the social ecology: (a) individuals across the life span, (b) their families and communities, and (c) the organizations that serve them.
Trauma-Informed Multilevel Approaches: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2023 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2022 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2021 8 Week Session
This service learning course is a comprehensive, integrated learning program conducted in Mexico. Through continuous cross-cultural immersion, Latino and non-Latino social work students build language skills; study culturally informed and derived engagement and intervention practices; and acquire competencies relevant to preparation for providing social welfare services to Latino clients. Ultimately, social work students will gain a transnational perspective that will shape their approach to providing services to Latino communities in the U.S. Includes lectures given by local academics, mental health professionals, community members and indigenous healers; language instruction; field placement/service learning; and an integration seminar.
Health and Human Services in Mexico: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2020
Overview of immigration policy in the U.S. from an international and historical perspective. Theories of migration, transnationalism, and adaptation will be addressed, along with skills required for working with refugees and immigrants facing difficulties. Addresses the impact of policy on who comes to the U.S. and the circumstances newcomers and their families face once here.
Immigrants and Refugees in the U.S: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022
This course prepares students to understand and practice diversity-sensitive, anti-oppressive social work. The course (1) builds awareness of power, privilege and marginalization embedded in each of our multiple and intersecting status dimensions (race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexual orientation, social class, gender identity and expression, dis/ability, religion, (im)migration, etc.), in the context of social work, (2) involves students in the process of awareness and practice through experiential, self-reflective and interactive activities, and (3) promotes anti-oppressive social work practice skills at multiple levels including individual, group, organizational and community levels.
Anti-Oppressive Social Work: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
Primarily for doctoral students. A review of efforts to conceptualize the field of social welfare and to analyze its tendencies.
Seminar in the History and Philosophy of Social Welfare: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2020, Spring 2019
This course will help students develop critical research literacy skills to effectively evaluate the quality of research they consume throughout various formats, paying particular attention to equity issues. Students will learn to identify the purpose and application of research across these platforms. To equip students with the necessary skills and tools, they will be introduced to the library research resources in social welfare, including reference works, bibliographic aids, and computer databases. Students will gain an understanding of the purpose and politics of citations, the promises and perils of AI for summarizing knowledge, and a practical understanding of how to evaluate and use research to support their multilevel practice.
Critical Research Literacy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2017 8 Week Session, Summer 2016 10 Week Session, Summer 2016 8 Week Session
The goal of this course is to develop a working knowledge of research designs and methods for the purpose of evaluating social work practice and programs.
Introduction to Social Welfare Research: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
This course is designed to provide (1) an overview of epistemological paradigms (or how we organize and legitimize our ways of knowing) and (2) various research methods that are derived from those paradigms and are used to inform social welfare research and practice.
Seminar in Social Welfare Research I: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
This course provides an overview on techniques for and challenges in program evaluation. Students will develop the critical skills necessary to assess the quality of evaluation research projects, to apply technical evaluation skills in professional practice, and to develop evaluation plans for a variety of programs. Students will apply the knowledge of research methods acquired through the MSW program to develop a program evaluation plan. Special attention will be paid to participatory, collaborative and equitable evaluation approaches, as well as qualitative methods. Through this course, each student will develop a program evaluation plan for a program of their choice.
Seminar in Social Welfare Research II: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
Students will be introduced to the tasks and tools of library research in social welfare, including reference works, bibliographic aids, and computer databases. Individual faculty members will present their research, emphasizing methodology, outcomes, and contributions to social welfare.
Research Resources and Processes: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
This course provides doctoral students a firm foundation in research processes and methods. Topics include problem formulation, use of theory, conceptualization, measurement, causal inference, sampling, and design methods. A core goal is to provide insight into the opportunities and challenges social work researchers face as they apply social science and related theory and methods to real world problems and settings. Course activities will guide students to future coursework in research methodologies and analysis, as well as position paper and dissertation proposal development. Sessions combine a focus on the conceptual and technical aspects of the research process and consider issues across quantitative and qualitative approaches.
Research Methods and Techniques in Social Welfare: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
Integrative seminar designed to augment and strengthen student experiential learning capacities in the context of agency-based field practicum training. Students participate in a wide array of activities and discussions to cultivate self-reflection and develop an enduring sense of authentic professional identity. Students will learn how to engage in peer-based validation, support, and corrective feedback, and examine how to strategically approach learning in agency contexts in order to become professionally competent and creative social workers. To become more knowledgeable advocates for a range of communities and social concerns, students will examine a wide range of practice dilemmas and challenges in which divergent experiences matter.
FOUNDATION FIELD INTEGRATION SEMINAR: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Continuation of integrative seminar exploring field placement issues and common agency and practice-based concerns. Run as a consultation group, this seminar encourages students to draw from a wide range of academic, field, and life experiences, to pose questions to and learn from one another, and to continue to examine how to strategically approach competency-based professional learning in agency contexts. Students are guided to deepen learning from assigned field placement tasks and academic coursework by participating effectively in peer consultation. The spring semester seminar also supports students as they engage in the second year placement process.
Foundation Field Integration Seminar II: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2013
This 2 unit seminar is intended for doctoral colleagues who are preparing to embark on a career as social work scholars and educators. The seminar is designed to facilitate an understanding of the nature of research universities and the role of social work education in these universities. It focuses on preparing doctoral colleagues for academic positions within research universities, and to understand their roles and expectations with regard to scholarship, teaching and service. It seeks to acquaint them with the evolution of professional social work education, with particular reference to research universities and to discuss current topics, issues and concerns in the field.
Preparing for an Academic Career in Social Work: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
Advanced Field Integration Seminar provides a cohort-based learning community for 2nd-year MSW students as they develop leadership skills in the advanced field practicum. This advanced seminar deepens students’ abilities to critically appraise and function effectively in organizational contexts. Students use self-reflection, foundation and specialty knowledge domains, and analytical thinking to identify complex, problem-solving approaches with the overall goal of providing evidence-informed, quality services to clients and communities. Students take increasing responsibility for planning, facilitating, and evaluating the seminar, allowing for deep discussion of relevant, advanced topics and advancing student group facilitation skills.
Advanced Field Integration Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Continuation of 2nd-year integrative seminar, providing opportunities to gain a sense of consolidation and closure, and to transition into the role of entry-level professional. Students will continue to take responsibility for planning, facilitating, and evaluating the seminar, including facilitating and evaluating advanced topical conversations identified by the cohort with guidance from the seminar instructor. This will allow for deep discussion of relevant, advanced topics and advance student skills in group facilitation. Students will identify strategies for lifelong learning and developing a strong professional support base.
Advanced Field Integration Seminar II: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2012
The course deals primarily with macro-theories of a sociological and political-economy nature that offer 1) conceptual representations of welfare systems, 2) explanations of the dynamics and functions of welfare systems, and 3) analyses and assessments of the different normative perspectives that inform policy making in social welfare. The latter aspect is given particular emphasis and the major normative theoretical perspectives in the field will be reviewed with reference to their policy implications for social welfare in the United States. The major theoretical perspectives to be discussed include institutionalism, welfare pluralism, neo-liberalism, Marxism, traditionalism, regulationism, critical theory, multiculturalism, feminism, ecologism, and developmentalism. This course is designed for doctoral students but is open to other qualified graduate students with instructor permission.
Social Welfare Theory: Policy Implications: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the tensions, techniques, and dynamics of current issues applicable to a specific social work workforce arena (e.g., child welfare, public behavioral health, integrated behavioral health, aging services). Actively exposing oneself to current issues in the workforce, the organizational contexts in which they are embedded, convergences and divergences between the theoretical, evidentiary, and practice bases characteristic of the arena, identifying areas of entry-level professional development trajectories, and for development in the social work field, and developing effective strategies for presenting scholarly work are important skills for social work professionals.
Master's Special Topics Seminar: Workforce Development: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
The goal of this seminar is to help doctoral students improve project conceptualization skills, academic writing abilities, and professional productivity. Resources on thinking clearly, writing well, and writing often will be provided. Students will submit papers for group review, and provide constructive feedback on other student papers. Students will discuss specific topics selected by the class, and review two draft student papers. Papers can include (a) statement of specific aims, outlines, and other beginning tools, (b) major sections of proposals (for grants, fellowships, dissertations), and (c) major sections of a new research product (publishable article or dissertation). A “major section” may be an introduction or a method section.
Writing and Publication Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2021, Spring 2020, Spring 2019
Designed to permit qualified graduate students to pursue special study in a subject area of their choosing under the direction of a faculty member.
Individual Study for Graduate Students: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Intensive examination of selected social welfare topics.
Group Study for Graduate Students: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2021, Fall 2020, Spring 2020
Designed to permit qualified graduate students to pursue research in a subject area of their choosing under the direction of a faculty member.
Individual Research for Graduate Students: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
Actively exposing oneself to various forms of scholarship, participating in research forums, identifying areas for professional development, and developing effective strategies for presenting scholarly work are crucial skills for social work academics. Thus, students are required to participate in research colloquia for the Social Welfare PhD degree. The colloquium is designed to expose students to a variety of scholarly approaches, models of scholarly professional development, and public presentation of scholarly work. Students will be exposed to research colloquia offered by other students, faculty, and invited scholars. Students will gain practice presenting their work, critiquing work of others, and receiving and responding to critique.
Social Welfare Graduate Research Colloquium: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2021, Spring 2016, Fall 2015
Supervised teaching assistance.
Training in Teaching: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
Interactive seminar that prepares doctoral students for teaching in social welfare. Includes examination of education from the perspective of both student and teacher, and their interface. It reviews philosophies and theories of adult education, and underscores the importance of critical reflection for both teacher and student. The course covers the practice of teaching in social welfare, and addresses specific skills, such as syllabus design, instructional methods, coverage of diversity content, student assignment and evaluation, use of technology, advising, mentoring, and working with students with special needs. Students will share their own learning and teaching experiences, and develop the beginnings of a teaching portfolio.
Teaching in Social Welfare: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2017, Summer 2016 10 Week Session, Spring 2016
Supervised field work in social agencies and university-based group meetings.
Field Practicum: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2003, Spring 2002, Spring 2001
Taken concurrently with foundation (SW 410A/B) and advanced (SW 412A/B) yearlong practicum, the practicum integration seminar facilitates the development of holistic competence for MSW students as they make meaning from their experiences with agency practice, integrate social work knowledge, values, and skills, and form their professional identities as social workers.
Practicum Integration Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Spring 2016, Fall 2015
Supervised research assistance.
Training in Research: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019
The foundation field practicum advances the experiential learning capacities and professional competencies of first year MSW students. Students are placed in an approved field internship placement setting for two days a week with an agency-based field instructor. Available placements provide a range of generalist learning opportunities along all phases of the intervention cycle (engagement, assessment, intervention, and/or evaluation) and various levels of the social ecology (individuals, families, groups, and/or communities). These opportunities allow the student to practice, receive observationally-based feedback, refine professional competencies, and ultimately, have their competencies assessed.
Foundation Practicum I: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
The foundation practicum advances the experiential learning capacities and professional competencies of first year MSW students. Students are placed in an approved field internship placement setting for two days a week with an agency-based field instructor. Available placements provide a range of generalist learning opportunities along all phases of the intervention cycle (engagement, assessment,intervention, and/or evaluation) and various levels of the social ecology (individuals, families, groups, and/or communities). These opportunities allow the student to practice, receive observational-based feedback, refine professional competencies, and ultimately, have their competencies assessed.
Foundation Practicum II: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2021, Fall 2020
Advanced Practicum advances the experiential learning capacities, professional competencies, and leadership capacities of second year MSW students. Available placements provide a range of complex learning opportunities along various phases of the intervention cycle; at various levels of the social ecology; and meet specific concentration-based standards. Students in Advanced Field Practicum generally assume a higher degree of professional responsibility for clinical care and/or administrative projects. These opportunities allow the student to practice, receive observational-based feedback, refine professional competencies, and have professional competencies assessed.
Advance Practicum I: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Advanced Field Practicum advances the experiential learning capacities, professional competencies, and leadership capacities of second year MSW students. Available placements provide a range of complex learning opportunities along various phases of the intervention cycle; at various levels of the social ecology; and meet specific concentration-based standards. , Students in Advanced Field Practicum generally assume a higher degree of professional responsibility for clinical care and/or administrative projects, especially in the spring semester. These opportunities allow the student to practice, receive observational-based feedback, and refine professional competencies, and ultimately, for their competencies to be assessed.
Advanced Practicum II: Read More [+]