THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK Course Number: 311/360K _ Instructor’s name: Darlene Grant, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies Unique Number: (61045/61235) Office Number: SSW 3.130L Semester: Spring 2004 Office Phone/e-mail: 471-0532 [email protected] Meeting Location: Campbell Elementary School 2613 Rogers, 414-2056; Pease Elementary 1106 Rio Grande, 414-4428 Teaching Assistants TBA Meeting Time/Place: T/TH, 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Office Hours: TBA and By Appointment WORKING WITH CHILDREN FROM AT-RISK ENVIRONMENTS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS I. Standardized Course Description This course is an elective course for anyone planning on working with children and their families as a social worker, psychologist, teacher, health practitioner, childcare worker, coach, mentor, other helping professional, or parent. The cour provides an opportunity to work first-hand with students in a neighborhood elementary school that has been designated as priority school by the local school district because of the number of at-risk students it serves. The course will provide a ba overview of environmental factors that create risk for children, as well as those factors that create opportunity, at the indiv family, school, neighborhood, community, and societal levels. The relationships between these factors and school perform will also be discussed, with a special focus on early learning and reading and the impact of mentoring on the life trajectori children. UT students will be paired on a one-to-one basis with a first or second grade child and will work with that child twice each for a 60-minute period. The focus of individual sessions will be on developing and strengthening the child's self-esteem a self-confidence, helping the child develop a positive, trusting relationship with an adult role model, and increasing the chi interest in problem-solving and learning, with a particular emphasis on language and reading skills. In addition to the tutoring/mentioning and in-classroom sessions with Campbell and Pease Elementary School students, an organized class p will be held periodically on Tuesday or Thursday mornings in place of the mentoring/tutoring sessions. II. Standardized Course Objectives By the end of the semester, students will be able to: 1. Identify environmental factors which place children at risk for problems, including individual, family, sch neighborhood, community, and societal factors; 2. Demonstrate an understanding of the relationships between ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status and children’s environments in influencing risk and system responsivity; 3. Identify and compare approaches to learning and social work strategies that are effective with children fro risk environments, including strengths and gaps, and the effectiveness of such programs with children from culturally di backgrounds; 4. Demonstrate an understanding of ethical and value dilemmas that may arise when working in a school set with children from at-risk environments; 5. Demonstrate communication and mentoring skills that are effective in working with children from at-risk environments, including ways of building self-esteem and self-confidence. 6. In collaboration with the assigned mentee’s teacher, and subsequent to two or more elementary school classroom observation experiences, demonstrate ability to assess children’s mentoring needs and ability to mentoring tasks accordingly, with emphasis on developing a sustained mentoring relationship across the semester. III. Teaching Methods The course will be primarily experiential. Each U.T. student/mentor will be assigned an elementary school mentee to w with for the entire semester. Each mentor will complete elementary school classroom observations in her/his mentee’s 1classroom as part of course instruction. Course material will also be presented through short presentations by the instru class discussion, worksheets, readings, audiovisual materials, guest speakers, and small group problem-solving discussi teacher feedback and other activities. IV. Required and Recommended Texts and Materials Required Readings McWhirter, J., McWhirter, A., McWhirter, B., and McWhirter, E. (2004). At risk youth: A comprehensive respons Ed. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole, pp. 80-94. V. Course Requirements Course grades will be based on a total of 100 points earned for the sum following activities: 1. Completion of volunteer experience at Campbell or Pease Elementary Schools, mentoring a first or second grade stud Attendance and attentiveness towards your mentee are the critical factors for satisfactory completion of this course seven and eight year old children form emotional attachments to mentors quickly, requiring sensitivity to their nee have a consistent experience. Observations conducted by the Teaching Assistants overseeing the course will contribute t assessment of achievement of attendance and attentiveness. Participation in class activities, including regular attendance, coming to class on time, coming to class prepared (readings assignments completed, ready to engage with the child), and participating actively and thoughtfully in class discussions an experiential exercises. It is important that you come to every mentoring session at the elementary school, be prompt, and mentor/tutor for a full 60 minutes Tuesdays and Thursdays. Dress appropriately for playground play, but attend to usual elementary school dress code (discussed later in this syllabus) sure to provide contact information so that you can be reached in case of last minute cancellation of class. Because children in general as well as from at-risk environments need relationships with individuals they can trust letter grade will be deducted from your final grade for two or more unexcused absences during the semester. Beca this course includes student athletes, official player excuse forms will be the only acceptable excuse for missing class due away games. All UT students are responsible for letting their mentee know when they will be absent and asking another a in the class to pick up and mentor that first/second grader during the absence. 2. Completion of one essay paper assignment (minimum of 5 typed pages) relating to the mentoring experience, in students are asked to integrate course content with experiences with assigned mentees. Essays will be due at the end of the semester. Begin each essay by