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Programs

The Core Curriculum

The core curriculum is central to the educational program at the master's level. It brings together all students, whatever their career interests, for a solid introduction to the fundamentals of social policy formulation and program implementation, social research, and direct practice. The core curriculum places particular emphasis on understanding and working with culturally diverse and economically disadvantaged populations. After completing core studies in the first year, students who choose clinical practice begin their concentration with an established awareness of the broader contexts of individual distress and helping responses, while social administration students enter their concentration with a corresponding understanding of social work intervention at the direct practice level.

Required courses in the first two quarters of the first year provide students with a common foundation of knowledge concerning social welfare issues, human development, direct practice intervention strategies, and social research. This foundation provides the background for concentration in clinical practice or social administration. Fieldwork placements in the first year are continuous for three quarters. They provide direct practice experience with distressed people and the institutions established to help them.

Core curriculum courses are distributed in the following manner for students in the day program:

Autumn Winter Spring
SSA 30000 SSA 30000 Concentration or Elective
SSA 30100 SSA 30100 Concentration or Elective
SSA 32700 SSA 30200 Concentration or Elective
Field Work Field Work Field Work

Core curriculum courses for the Extended Evening Program (EEP) are offered during the first and second years of study.

Social Intervention: Programs and Policies (SSA 30000). These two courses introduce all students to the design and implementation of social welfare interventions at the community, agency, and public policy levels. The courses use case material on policy issues that require a decision.  This helps students learn and exercise skills in analyzing the components of current policies; designing programmatic alternatives; anticipating substantive, operational, and political advantages and disadvantages; weighing benefits against financial costs; and making sound choices among imperfect alternatives. The courses also give students a thorough substantive grounding in several critical areas of social welfare, including those of transfer programs and such service areas as child welfare and mental health. Some cases include an analysis of the historical antecedents of a contemporary issue, and some include discussion of underlying philosophical premises.

Social Intervention: Direct Practice (SSA 30100). These two courses introduce students to the fundamental values and conceptual bases of social intervention. They are designed to teach the knowledge and skills necessary to enable students to carry out activities that will enhance the lives of people with psychosocial needs and problems.  Content is structured around professional socialization, context for practice, diversity, assessment, intervention, and evaluation.  Emphasis is on the development of skills for assessment and intervention with individuals, families, and groups.

Various theories and models of practice are examined to understand the similarities and differences in their approach to problem solving.  The courses aim for an integration of theory and practice that will enable students to effectively intervene on behalf of their clients.  Students are expected to develop an understanding of the assessment of problems and beginning competence in the processes of change.

A field seminar is required. The seminar introduces students to basic social work skills in interviewing, assessment, and professional writing. It provides experiential learning drawing on students' field work.

Social Intervention: Research and Evaluation (SSA 30200). This course focuses on the generation, analysis, and use of data and information relevant to decision making at the case, program, and policy levels. Students learn and develop skill in the collecting, analyzing and using data related to fundamental aspects of social work practice: problem assessment and definition; intervention formulation, implementation, and refinement; and evaluation. The course covers specification and measurement of various practice and social science concepts, sampling methods, data collection strategies, and statistical and graphical approaches to data analysis. This course is required of all first-year master's students. Students with strong research skills and education may be eligible for advanced research course (SSA 30400).

Human Behavior and the Social Environment (SSA 32700). This core course teaches biological and social science concepts concerning human development in a social context that are fundamental to social work practice: social and ecological systems; life course development; culture, ethnicity, and gender; stress, coping, and adaptation; and major social issues related to development over the life course. Students learn a general framework and theory for integrating the concepts.  Students with strong academic backgrounds in human behavior may be eligible for an advanced human behavior course.

Human Diversity Requirement

In keeping with the School's mission and the commitment to train students for practice in a heterogeneous society, curriculum content on human diversity is integrated into nearly every course. In addition, students must take one or more courses from a list of approved first and second year offerings. The requirement in human diversity is intended to provide students with an analytical framework to understand human behavior and political processes in the environment of a diverse society to satisfy the following five goals:

  1. To promote respect for ethnic and cultural diversity as an integral part of social work's commitment to preserve human dignity.
  2. To foster knowledge and understanding of individuals, families, and communities in their sociocultural and socioeconomic contexts.
  3. To analyze the ethnic and political issues related to the patterns, dynamics, and consequences of discrimination and oppression.
  4. To help students develop skills to promote individual and social change toward social and economic justice.
  5. To provide students a theoretical framework for integrating an approach toward diversity within their own particular area of expertise (e.g., clinical, community, organization, management, etc.).

Each year students will be provided a list of courses that meet the diversity requirement. Students who would like to substitute a course must obtain a copy of the syllabus for that course and submit a written memo to the Dean of Students explaining why that course will meet the goals provided by the diversity requirement. Because the diversity requirement is intended to give students an analytical framework with which to integrate questions of diversity within their training at SSA, no waivers of this course are considered. Approved courses in human diversity for the 2007-2008 academic year are listed below.

42100 Aging and Mental Health
42800 Clinical Intervention with Socially Vulnerable
           Clients
43300 The Exceptional Child
43900 Disability: Medical, Ethical and Psychosocial
           Issues
44112 Use of Self and Clinical Practice with
           Multicultural Populations
44301 Psychodynamic Perspectives on Spirituality
44401 Sexuality across the Life Cycle 
44800 Urban Adolescents in Their Families,
           Communities, and Schools: Issues for
           Research and Policy
44922 Patterns of Distress across Cultures
45200 African American Families: Theories and
           Research on the Role of Fathers
46500 The Youth Gang Problem:  Policy,
           Programs, and Research
46912 Race, Ethicity and Gender: Organizational 
           Issues
47801 A Human Rights Perspective for Social Work
           Direct Practice
47912 Psychotherapy with Gay and Lesbian Clients
60100 Drugs:  Culture and Context
60200 Spirituality and Social Work Practice
60600 Cultural Diversity & Social Development of
           Urban-Dwelling Children
60700 Cultural Differences in Clinical Work
61400 The Social Meaning of Race

For full course descriptions, CLICK HERE.

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