Social Work With Children, Youth, and Families
This course introduces the context for social work with children, youth, and families as well as specific theories, policies, programs, and services. Areas examined include antipoverty policies and programs, child welfare, education, behavioral health, healthcare, disabilities, and juvenile justice. This course provides an overview of policies, programs, and services for children, youth, and families in the United States using a risk and resilience framework. Areas considered include antipoverty policies and programs, child welfare, education policy for children, youth, and families, child mental health, healthcare, children and youth with disabilities, adolescent substance abuse, and juvenile justice policies and programs.
Learning Outcomes/Objectives
- Discuss how services to children and families are provided along a continuum from least intrusive (support services), to somewhat more comprehensive (supplemental services), to those services that substitute either temporarily or permanently for their natural family (substitute services)
- Discuss the history of services for children and their families in the United States
- Explain the role of the family in the lives of children, how these roles may vary in different populations, and how the roles can break down
- Demonstrate an understanding of how social problems such as poverty, violence, substance abuse, and homelessness affect children and their families
- Explain concepts of family preservation, family support, permanency planning, and their meaning to children and families
- Discuss such services as day care, school-based services, counseling, court services, protective services, services to teen parents, foster care, adoption, residential services, and their impact on children and their families
- Discuss trends in and the possible future of services to children and families given current social attitudes and political climate
- Explain the role of a child welfare worker in various types of services for children and families