Lecture: 4 hours/week
Lecture
Group exercises
Student presentations
Course content will be guided by research, empirical knowledge and best practice. The following values and principles, consistent with professional standards, inform course content.
- Child welfare systems have been used as a tool of colonization and caused significant harms, particularly to Indigenous children, families and communities.
- An understanding of anti-oppressive, decolonizing, anti-racist and feminist perspectives, and of the role of factors like class, disability and sexuality, is necessary if children, youth and families are to be supported adequately.
- Interventions to prevent child abuse and neglect can help children, youth and families.
- Strengths-based, culturally-grounded, family-centred, community-based and systems approaches can be useful in child welfare assessment and intervention.
- Child Welfare Social Workers require:
- A critical self-evaluation of personal values and beliefs about child welfare.
- A working understanding of relevant legislation, policies and systems (e.g. legal, kinship and community, foster care) and an ability to collaborate between systems.
- An ability to support and empower diverse families.
- Current knowledge, informed by relevant research, to effectively recognize, assess and intervene in situations of abuse, neglect and trauma.
Upon successful completion of this course the student will be able to:
- Identify major historical, ideological, legal and professional themes that inform child welfare policy and practice in Canada, including the disproportionate impact on Indigenous Peoples.
- Critique child welfare systems using anti-oppressive, decolonizing, anti-racist and feminist perspectives and concepts of class, disability and sexuality.
- Describe core elements of the current child welfare system in British Columbia, including legislation, policies and practice approaches.
- Identify different forms of abuse, neglect and trauma and their indicators and impacts.
- Describe ways to assess and support children, youth and families, including strengths-based and culturally-grounded approaches.
- Apply assessment and planning tools in a child welfare context.
- Analyse one’s personal values and beliefs in relation to child welfare work.
Evaluations will be carried out in accordance with ºÚÁϳԹÏÍøÆØÒ»Çø¶þÇø Evaluation Policy and will include both formative and summative components. Instructors may use a student's record of attendance and/or active participation in a course as part of the student's graded performance. Where this occurs, expectations and grade calculations regarding class attendance and participation will be clearly defined in the Instructor Course Outline.
Examinations
Research papers
Presentations
Participation
Attendance
Textbooks and materials are to be purchased by students. A list of required textbooks and materials is provided for students at the beginning of the semester.
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