SW 563 Collaborative Approaches to Family_Therapy
Collaborative approaches to therapy assume that our clients have expertise regarding their needs and how their families work, as well as the tools necessary to move in their preferred direction. This framework means that the Social Worker's role is close to that of a consultant, who has the skills to facilitate the family's recognition of their strengths, including ways in which the family is already working well, and ways of leveraging these successes to address areas where the family is challenged. This course will offer approaches to treatment and assessment that will utilize strengths-based perspectives to help families articulate their values and intentions, and then use their values and intentions as a platform from which to move in preferred directions. Through readings, lecture, discussion, and practical exercises, students will be immersed in a collaborative worldview, one that many find refreshing and yet daunting at first to integrate into practice because of our culture's affinity for problem- saturated models. To facilitate students' shift to collaborative practice, the course will introduce students to several collaborative frameworks and associated methods.