SOWK 644 Social Development and International Social Work Practice

Social Development and International Social Work Practice provides students with the opportunity to develop skills in working with international populations. Students will gain an understanding of global social work in developing and developed countries.

“Social workers understand that every person regardless of position in society has fundamental human rights. Social workers are knowledgeable about the global intersecting and ongoing injustices throughout history that result in oppression and racism, including social work’s role and response. Social workers critically evaluate the distribution of power and privilege in society in order to promote social, racial, economic, and environmental justice by reducing inequities and ensuring dignity and respect for all. Social workers advocate for and engage in strategies to eliminate oppressive structural barriers to ensure that social resources, rights, and responsibilities are distributed equitably, and that civil, political, economic, social, and cultural human rights are protected” (CSWE, 2022, p. 9)

Textbook readings and lecture presentations

No details available.

After reading the Course Syllabus and Student Expectations, the student will complete the related checklist found in the Course Overview.

Discussions are collaborative learning experiences. Therefore, each student is required to create a video post/thread in response to the provided prompt for each video discussion. Each video post/thread must be at least three minutes and no more than five minutes (should be somewhere from 350-500 words), demonstrate and infuse course-related knowledge, and include one current news event about his/her chosen topic. In addition to the video post/thread, the student is required to reply by video to the threads of at least two classmates. Each video reply must be at least two minutes and no more than three minutes. (CLO: A, B, C, D; Competencies: 1, 2, 3, 4; Dimensions: Knowledge, Values, Skills, & Cognitive and Affective Processes)

An advocacy brief is utilized to help summarize an issue, showing why it should be a concern, and a specific stance on how to create change to help this issue/problem. An advocacy brief can build in advocacy strategies and show the changes the creator wants to effect.

The student will design a two-page Advocacy Brief detailing his/her global social issue/problem, making sure to describe the importance and urgency of this issue, give a summary of the issue, and bring in statistics to give supporting evidence. The assignment should include/create visuals like charts or graphs that are engaging and eye-catching and can help illustrate what the student is trying to get across. A generic outline would include an introduction, background information, the rationale of why someone would need to be concerned about this issue, and what the student would want to see happen to tackle this issue. This is not country-specific, so the student may use global statistics. Examples of advocacy briefs are presented in the Learn activities (i.e., Read and Watch) and assignment description in Canvas. The student can be creative in designing his/her assignment and use any layout desired, as long as he/she references any pictures and sources used per APA formatting.

Based on the Case 11.3 Getting Girls to School in Mozambique—A Situational Analysis (p. 324), the student will answer the following questions in APA essay format. This should be from four to six pages, not counting title page nor references.

• Please give a summary of the problem in the case study.
• Identify the human rights violations and match those to the corresponding rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• Utilizing the reading from Chapter 11 and examples given of international relief and development practices, suggest two changes to help begin to alleviate the problem shared in the case study.
• Please make sure to use the “bottom-up humanitarian approaches to long term, sustainable development” (p. 339) as a guideline when creating these two changes. Please name these approaches as they appear in your two changes.
• Please describe after “implementing your two suggested changes,” what would you hope to see change and what to you would be considered “successful.”
• Please insert one Biblical story or one Biblical Scripture that connects to this situational analysis and our duty as a Christian to address such needs.

(CLO: B, C, G, H, J; Competencies: 2, 3, 7, 8; Dimensions: Knowledge, Values, Skills, and Cognitive and Affective Processes)

Based on the student’s global social issue/problem, he/she will find a country, other than the United States, which struggles with that global social issue/problem. The student will examine the global issue/problem in relation to the social, cultural, political, and economic contexts within the global country and find a policy in that country for which the focus is on trying to address the chosen global social issue/problem. There can be an underlying assumption that the policy does not alleviate the social issue. The student will propose a policy change that anticipates benefits for the citizens who are experiencing the issue/problem in that country (e.g., target population) by redressing human rights violations, injustices, and systemic oppression. The paper must be four to six pages and include two peer-reviewed articles, dated five years back to present. Please utilize Chapter 13 for this assignment. (CLO: A, B, C, D, E; Competencies: 1, 2, 3, 4, 9; Dimensions: Knowledge, Values, Skills, and Cognitive and Affective Processes)

Students will choose a global social issue/problem to focus on for the entire term. There will be a list provided in the quiz where the student must choose his/her top three choices ranking highest (1^st) to lowest (3^rd), and it is first come, first serve basis, based on the turn-in time of quiz submissions. The student should pick his/her top three by listing in each question the corresponding topic chosen. This quiz will be open-book/open-notes, contain 3 short answer questions, have no time limit, and allow unlimited attempts.