Lecture: 4 hours/week
Lecture
Instructor demonstration
Practice simulations
Small group discussion
Course content will be guided by research, empirical knowledge, and best practices. The following values and principles, consistent with professional standards, inform course content.
- Skill versatility enables social workers to customize their approach based on the culture, personal identity, and other factors in which people define themselves.
- An understanding of the intersectionality of the client's experience is fundamental to developing conditions for change.
- Effective counselling and interviewing is empowering and incorporates anti-racism and anti-colonial principles; it builds on clients’ strengths and their inherent capacity for growth and change.
- Skill is necessary but insufficient for competent practice. Technical proficiency must be balanced with a caring attitude and an affirmation of client rights.
- Effective counselling work is collaborative; counsellors involve and consult with clients regarding their respective roles, the purpose of the work, and methods that will be used.
- Effective practitioners know how, when and why a given skill is used, and they have the assertiveness, understanding, creativity and sensitivity to use it when appropriate.
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
1. Demonstrate self-awareness in relation to their own social locations, identities, assumptions and how these may influence their interactions with clients.
2. Analyze and address colonial narratives that may be embedded in the counselling relationship and the implications of the dominant Euro-Western worldview. Describe the inherent strengths and resiliency of Indigenous people.
3. Identify and address the prejudices and violence experienced by people based on their personal identities.
4. Identify and address how individual challenges are related to larger issues of racism and oppression.
5. Examine the connection between environmental sustainability, social indicators of health, and individual wellbeing.
6. Demonstrate knowledge of basic communication and responding skills and the elements of a strengths based approach to promote the empowerment of people.
7. Assess potential contradictions between formal codes of ethics, employment responsibilities, and the best interests of the client.
Evaluations will be carried out in accordance with Douglas College Evaluation Policy and will include both formative and summative components. Instructors may use a student's record of attendance and/or level of 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.
This course will conform to Douglas College policy regarding the number and weighting of evaluations. Typical means of assessment may include some or all of the following:
- Written papers
- Exams
- Presentations (individual or group)
- Attendance
- Participation
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.
None
None