3.00 Credits
This seminar focuses on selected topics of particular significance or current importance and interest to the social work profession. Students can receive credit for more than one seminar provided that each seminar focuses on a different topic. Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors only. This course provides knowledge, skills and values needed to engage in family work as a generalist social worker. This course is a special interest course in the social work curriculum that provides opportunities to explore the role and function of the generalist social worker learning about trauma-informed practice. Trauma across the lifespan is essential knowledge for social workers because it is a risk factor increasing the overall quality of life for both those who experience or work with populations who have been a survivor of traumatic experiences. Given that most people from poorer countries migrate to more prosperous countries, individual who are from the lower socioeconomic income are increasingly vulnerable. As articulated by CSWE: A reciprocal interaction exists between social, political, and legal systems and the individuals and families traumatized. It affects the systems' capacity to respond effectively to the needs of affected individuals or families and the capacity of the systems themselves to adjust and recover. Inequities embedded in these systems lead to accumulated disadvantages in access to tangible and intangible sources of social support. The resulting inequality contributes to the over representation of individuals who are traumatized among the populations affected by major social problems, such as homelessness, substance abuse, low educational attainment, joblessness, and chronic poor health.