THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGANSCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK SW 625: INTERPERSONAL PRACTICE WITH CHILDREN AND YOUTH Winter ‘03 Prof. Robert M. Ortega, MSW, Ph.D. SSWB O:763-6576 Office Hours: M, T: 9am-noon, (Other days possible but by appointment only) e-mail: [email protected] Course Description: This course will examine practice theories and techniques for working with children, adolescents, and their parents. This course will provide grounding in the following perspectives: attachment/transactional theory, child and adolescent development, and parenthood, including ethnic/cultural variations in child rearing practices. The interaction between environmental risk factors, protective factors, and developmental factors as they contribute to coping, resiliency, and disorder will also be covered. Major clinical concepts including assessment, treatment planning, work with parents, and developmentally appropriate engagement and intervention techniques will be addressed. This course will be organized in terms of the sequence of development and will cover clinical issues and treatment approaches relevant to each developmental stage. Course Content: This course will present prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation models appropriate to interpersonal practice with children and youth in a variety of contexts. Content will focus on the early phases of intervention, including barriers to engagement that may result from client-worker differences, involuntary participation on the part of the child, youth, or family, and factors external to the client-worker relationship, such as policy or institutional decisions that may influence or shape the therapeutic relationship. Since the intervention strategies taught in this course rely significantly on the social worker as a critical component of the change process, attention will be paid to the understanding of self as an instrument in the change process. A variety of methods for engaging children, youth, and their families (or other caretaking adults such as foster parents) will be presented. Assessment content will emphasize client and caretaker strengths and resources as well as risks to child or youth well-being that may result from internal or external vulnerabilities caused by trauma, deprivation, discrimination, separation and loss, developmental disability, and physical and mental illness. Particular attention will be paid to cultural, social, and economic factors that influence client functioning or the worker’s ability to accurately assess the child, youth, or family.SW 625: Interpersonal Practice with Children and Youth Winter ‘03 - Prof. R M. Ortega. 2Content on treatment planning will assist students in selecting interventions which are based on a thorough assessment, appropriate to the child’s or youth’s situation, and sensitive to and compatible with the client’s and family’s expressed needs, goals, circumstances, values, and beliefs. Summary descriptions of developmental stages (i.e. infancy, toddlerhood, preschool age, school age, and adolescence) will be presented in terms of developmental characteristics and milestones, salient developmental challenges, and themes such as self-esteem and the development of peer relationships. This information will form the background for discussions and case examples which illustrate the relationship between development and behavior, including communication and relational capacities and the necessity of selecting developmentally appropriate intervention techniques (e.g. the use of displacement techniques, such as play or drawing, with preschool children). Most frequently these techniques have as their goal the reduction of psychological distress and the improvement of individual functioning and interpersonal relations. Helping parents or other caretaking adults to understand the child’s or youth’s issues or behavior in developmental terms will also be discussed. A range of intervention approaches will be presented such as individual play therapy, family therapy, conjoint treatment of parents and children, cognitive behavioral interventions, group work, parent training, and parent guidance. Since work with children and youth almost always requires multiple intervention modalities, attention will be given to creating effective intervention plans through the integration of different modalities. Those intervention methods which have been empirically demonstrated to be effective will be given particular emphasis. Methods for monitoring and evaluating interventions will also be discussed and demonstrated in this course. Course Objectives: Upon completion of the course, students will be able to: 1. Describe and apply a number of assessment procedures (e.g. direct observation of or interviews with the client, parent or caretaker, and collateral contacts with teachers, caseworkers, or other professionals) that identify internal and external risk and protective factors that may affect children and youth. 2. Describe the primary developmental tasks and characteristics of childhood and adolescence as they relate to the selection and implementation of developmentally appropriate techniques for engaging and treating children and youth. 3. Identify the ways in which continuity or disruption in primary care relationships may impact children, adolescents, and the therapeutic relationship. 4. Conduct and write up an assessment that includes information on the child’s physical, emotional, and cognitive development, temperament, relationship history, and performance as the basis for formulating an understanding of the child’s presenting problems and circumstances. 5. Implement research supported prevention and intervention strategies (e.g. play therapy and parent training) that are compatible with client and family or caretaker goals, needs, circumstances, and values. 6. Monitor and evaluate interventions with regard to: effectiveness, sensitivity to client-worker differences; impact of clients’ and families’ social identities (i.e.SW 625: Interpersonal Practice with Children and Youth Winter ‘03 - Prof. R M. Ortega. 3race/ethnicity, gender, social class, sexual orientation, religion) on their experience of power and privilege; and appropriateness of the intervention to specific client needs resulting from conditions such as maltreatment, deprivation, disability, and substance abuse. Course Design: Class format will include lecture, discussion, case analysis,