SW 622B - Advanced Practice II: Community Mental Health: Groups, Organizations, and Communities

Units: 4
This is the second advanced practice course required of students in the community mental health concentration. It imparts knowledge and skills for providing culturally responsive services to groups, organizations, and communities, particularly minority and underserved populations in urban environments.

Prerequisites: M.S.W. major.
Credit Restrictions: Master of Social Work students only.

Possible Instructional Methods: Hybrid.
Grading: A-F grading only.
Student Learning Outcomes - Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:

Understand, articulate, and integrate principles, values, and ethics of the social work profession into advanced mental health practice with groups, organizations, and communities targeting ethnic-specific and urban underserved populations (PLO: Values & Ethics).
Analyze and apply research knowledge on evidence-based interventions to support your provision of mental health services to groups, organizations, and communities (PLO: Critical Thinking/Applying Theory to Practice).
Learn to develop effective family and group-based treatment plans in collaboration with consumers that are based in a comprehensive assessment of consumer, family, and community strengths, needs, and resources (PLO: Critical Thinking/Applying Theory to Practice).
Demonstrate basic knowledge of local, state, national, international mental health policy, and how policies may differentially affect diverse populations (PLO: Critical Thinking/Applying Theory to Practice).
Identify and evaluate macro and mezzo social welfare policies that affect people with mental illnesses from multiple stakeholder perspectives (PLO: Critical Thinking/Applying Theory to Practice).
Analyze mental health policies using multiple macro theoretical perspectives (PLO: Critical Thinking/Applying Theory to Practice).
Describe the role(s) of a direct service mental health practitioner embedded within a work group, agency, professional organization, and the macro social environment (PLO: Critical Thinking/Applying Theory to Practice).
Critically examine ethical dilemmas in advanced macro mental health practice (PLO: Values and Ethics).
Demonstrate knowledge of current patterns and trends in the mental health profession, as well as mental health care funding streams and associated policies that influence the delivery of mental health services (PLO: Critical Thinking/Applying Theory to Practice).
Demonstrate knowledge of state, national, and international mental health laws (PLO: Critical Thinking/Applying Theory to Practice).
Discuss the policy implications of how mental illness is defined, and how varying definitions of mental illness may differentially affect diverse populations (PLO: Critical Thinking/Applying Theory to Practice).
Develop and advocate for fair, feasible policies in macro and mezzo community mental health settings that consider multiple stakeholder perspectives (PLO: Advocacy).