Syllabus

Master of Social Work

SSWO 673 – Social Work and the Law

Credits - 3

Description

This course, “Social Work Practice and the Law” is designed to introduce students to the various components of law and how the exchanges between legal professionals and a social worker coincides when an individual, family, or group is faced with legal issues. It provides an introductory examination of historical frameworks of both law/social work and how the two systems interact with one another within all of the legal and social work domains. This course showcases the systems perspective as well as practice techniques in communicating and collaborating across professional fields. The goal of this course is to understand the context of law, social work, and their continuing relevance to understanding and meeting a client’s legal needs.

Materials

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

School of Social Work Program Outcomes:

Graduates of the UNE SSWO will demonstrate knowledge, skills, and leadership in the following:

1. Demonstrates ethical and professional behavior.
2. Advance human rights and social, racial, economic, and environmental justice.
3. Engage in anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion (ADEI) in practice.
4. Engage in practice-informed research and research-informed practice.
5. Engage in policy practice.
6. Engage with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.
7. Assess individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.
8. Intervene with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.
9. Evaluate practice with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.

Course Outcomes

1. Demonstrate an understanding of the various components of law and how the exchanges between legal professionals and a social worker coincides when an individual, family, or group is faced with legal issues. Program Outcomes 1 & 2 (As measured by Discussion, Case Study, Interview Assignment Questions, Interview Final Paper and Interview Assignment Presentation).
2. Describe their conception of the various pathways related to social work practice and the law from inequity to its physiological and psychosocial embodiment. Program Outcomes 4 & 6 (As measured by Discussion, Case Study, Interview Assignment Questions, Interview Final Paper and Interview Assignment Presentation).
3. Demonstrate through writing an understanding of population-based research and evaluating social and law preventative policies. Program Outcomes 6 (As measured by Discussion, Case Study, Interview Assignment Questions, Interview Final Paper and Interview Assignment Presentation).
4. Identify, describe and apply ability to design an agency-based instrument to assess the impact of social work practice and the law factors on service utilization and outcomes. Program Outcomes 5 (As measured by Interview Assignment Final Paper and Interview Assignment Presentation).

Assignments

Discussion Forums (includes participation)

Discussion Board: The entire collection of discussions in the main course room.

Discussion Forum: The individual forum (venue) for each question.

Discussion Question: The actual question within the discussion forum. Each week there are two discussion questions within the main classroom discussion board area (one is a regular discussion question and one is a case study discussion question). The regular discussion question requires an initial response by the end of Saturday, midnight, ET; however, feel free to post your work earlier in the learning week if you choose. The Case Study discussion question requires an initial response by Sunday, midnight, ET. Please consult the Course Schedule for exact dates. The final week has a modified schedule.

What are initial responses?

Initial responses are those that you post as a direct response to a discussion forum and must include at least 400 words and two integrated/cited sources; one from the text and one from a scholarly journal article (scholarly journal articles of your choice can be found via the “Library Articles” link in the course navigation menu in Blackboard). The use of APA style is required (6th Edition APA Manual). Note, there are two different types of discussion questions each week – one is a regular, scholarly discussion question where you will focus on demonstrating excellent writing skills, critical thinking, and reflection and integration of course materials. The other discussion question is in the form of a case study weekly activity. Please refer to the “Case Study Guidelines” document for further explanation on how to present your initial response each week for that activity. Regardless, initial responses are due on Saturday and Sunday and are noted in each of the discussion forums.

Remember (Regular Discussion Question)!

→ 400 Words

→ APA format

→ 1 source from text

→ 1 source from journal article

What are responses?

Responses are posts that demonstrate that you are responding to another student. These are generally what you think of as “participation” posts. You are expected to actively participate in the forums each week. To actively participate in the forums means to respond to anyone on at least 3 different days per week. You can respond to one student on three different days, or 20 students on three different days! You can respond to students in one forum only, or spread out your responses among both forums! However, what is important is that you are actively present in the forums responding to other students on three different days. Your initial posting does not count towards responses to others.

Responses to others must add substantively to the discussion by building upon classmates’ ideas or posing critical questions to further the discussion. For example, a posting of “I agree with what people are saying” is not sufficient. What is considered sufficient is initiating further discussion; promoting further thought; providing critical or integrative dialogue; providing affective support or encouragement; challenging by showing supporting literature or other documentation, and/or self-reflecting regarding the topic.

The weekly points available for the discussion board includes participation. Your instructor will review the weekly contributions in the discussion forums by taking note of each of the following criteria listed in the “Discussion Forum Rubric” below.

Interview Assignment Questions (Due Week 2)

For this assignment, the student will be expected to generate a list of interview questions that will be submitted to the instructor for review before conducting the actual interview. The student must include exactly 10 questions, in addition to profile questions (type of work, position, years in the field, etc.). The questions must be open-ended. The assignment can be formatted in any way, however, must include an APA title page, use 12pt Times New Roman font and must be double-spaced throughout. Students must receive feedback on their questions before they can conduct the interviews

Interview Assignment Final Paper (Due Week 6):

After the student has crafted their interview questions, received approval from the instructor of the questions, they can then conduct the interview. For the final paper, students will critically think about and analyze the interview that was conducted with an individual who is associated with a legal entity (not another social worker). Typically, this paper results in a comprehensive document containing approximately 12-15 pages, not including the title and reference page. The following sections and their headings must be included in this final paper:

1. Demographics / Background Information of the Person: You Interviewed This section will include information about the individual the student has selected to interview. No personally identifying information of the interviewee can be contained within this section (or any section) of the paper, i.e. first / last name and name of agency. The student must make every attempt to keep the interviewee’s information confidential.
2. Interview Questions Review and A Critical Analysis of Responses: This section will highlight the interview questions asked and the answers received. This section is to be written in narrative form and using first person perspective is acceptable. The student will critically analyze the responses received from each question and share their thoughts on what was said. To simply state, “I agree with this interviewee’s comments” is not sufficient. The student is expected to challenge thoughts and incorporate theories/practices studied in this course.
3. A Proposal or Action of Change: For this section, the student just think about alternative approaches that could be utilized when considering the scope of topics discussed during the interview. Information should be included that discusses how the action would foster social change. The written work must be supported by empirical and scholarly evidence. In other words, identify something from the interview that could inspire social change or social action. Some examples from the past include: Communication among social workers and attorneys; social workers not viewed as knowledgeable enough to work in the legal system; inequity of resources, lack of training and education, etc.
4. Explain how social workers / legal professionals can play a key role: This section must include how social workers or professionals intersecting with legal systems can play a key role in supporting the proposal or action of change.
5. Critique your proposal or action of change: If someone does not agree with the proposal, what would they say and why would they say it? This section must include sound evidence and support from the opposite side of the argument to encourage students to critically evaluate the proposal or action of change.
6. Highlight both positive and negative outcomes to your alternative approaches
7. Ethical Issues Discussion: What are the ethical issues that could come about as the topic is addressed for change?
8. Final thoughts and conclusion.

Interview Assignment Final Presentation (Due Week 7)

The PowerPoint assignment is the student’s opportunity to showcase their project! The student can be as creative and expansive as they want! The purpose of this assignment is NOT to regurgitate information, rather to inform the audience of the intersection of social work practice and the law along with highlighting the interview that was conducted. The idea is to share newly-found information with classmates to further promote sound and relevant practices. Consider keeping the presentation between 10-15 slides total.

Grading Policy

The School of Social Work uses the following grading system for all courses with the exception of field education courses. Students are expected to maintain a “B” (3.0) average over the course of their study. Students with less than a GPA of 3.0 will be placed on academic probation. Students must have an overall GPA of 3.0 in order to receive their Master’s Degree.

Your grade in this course will be determined by the following criteria:

Grade Breakdown

Assignment	Point Value	% of Grade
Discussion Questions (Includes Weekly Participation)	400 | 50 points x 8 weeks (points include weekly participation AND initial responses to discussion questions and are provided according to efforts and quality of work. Please see rubric.)	40
Interview Assignment Questions	100	10
Interview Assignment Final Paper	400	40
Interview Assignment Presentation	100	10
Total	1,000 points	100

Grade Scale

Grade	Points Grade	Point Average (GPA)
A	94 – 100%	4.00
A-	90 – 93%	3.75
B+	87 – 89%	3.50
B	84 – 86%	3.00
B-	80 – 83%	2.75
C+	77 – 79%	2.50
C	74 – 76%	2.00
C-	70 – 73%	1.75
D	64 – 69%	1.00
F	00 – 63%	0.00