In social work practice and in program development, it is possible to make faulty assumptions about what clients need and what social work activities will lead to. Consider the following:   A team of social workers meets to discuss their services to low-income young mothers. One social worker states that what the young mothers […]

  A large part of being a social worker is being able to see the strengths in any situation. This characteristic can be described as having a “half full” view on life. As a clinical social worker, it is important to cultivate strength-based skills. By now, your group should have developed a plan in completing […]

  Week 2: Field Education — Orientation and Application This week, you focus on Field Education. It is important that you understand the requirements and expectations of Field Education. Therefore, this week, you review information on the policies and requirements for your field placement process, as well as information about safety in the field setting. […]

Your Immersion Project for this course is essentially ethnographic research. When you hear the words ethnography or ethnographic research, you may think of Margaret Mead or Franz Boas performing their research on cultures outside their own countries and living among their research subjects. Contemporary ethnographic research includes many other types of research scenarios, such as […]

  A process recording is a written tool used by field education experience students, field instructors, and faculty to examine the dynamics of social work interactions in time. Process recordings can help in developing and refining interviewing and intervention skills. By conceptualizing and organizing ongoing activities with social work clients, you are able to clarify […]

  Piedra and Engstrom (2009) noted how the life model “remains general  and unspecific regarding factors that affect immigrant families” (p.  272). Recall that there will never be one theory  or a model that can fully explain a phenomenon or lay out all the steps  and procedures when working with complex issues that clients present […]

  Week 1: The Risks and Benefits of Diagnosis Understanding the definitions and conceptualizations of various psychopathologies is imperative when practicing as a social worker. As part of a multidisciplinary team, a social worker needs to be able to recognize patterns of illness and discuss a client’s diagnosis. Social workers in clinical settings also need […]

  The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) specifies the ethics and values of the profession in their Code of Ethics. Section 6.04 of the Code of Ethics (1999) states: Social workers should engage in social and political action that seeks to ensure that all people have equal access to the resources, employment, services, and […]

  Conducting a Job Search An undergraduate psychology degree provides you with some flexibility when selecting a career. The knowledge of how people think, develop, and behave, as well as the interpersonal skills gained from a BA in psychology may lead to work in the field, but also prepares you well for careers in the […]

Homework help – Discussion 1: Social Security and Social Welfare Programs For years, many working individuals in the United States have counted on Social Security as their primary retirement income. With the deductions from every paycheck to fund this future benefit, Americans looked forward to a comfortable retirement based on the assumption that these funds […]