SocW 514
Family Healing: A HBSE Cross-Generational Approach

Instructors for Autumn 2007:

• Wendy Lustbader*

Course Overview:

Multigenerational families present particular challenges and opportunities for social workers in all practice settings. Understanding how both difficulties and strengths are passed from one generation to another is critical for knowing how to intervene effectively, whether the issue is adolescent rebellion, a couple about to fracture, or an older parent suddenly in need of care. While current service systems tend to focus narrowly on one or two members of a family, this course will explore how to respond to the dynamic within the entire extended family. Cultural differences will be emphasized, as well as issues pertaining to the impact of chemical dependency, mental illness, and disability across generations.

Course Objectives

Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

1. Adopt a self-aware approach to practice by:
1. Demonstrating alertness to one’s reactions to client situations based on one’s own family of origin and how these might affect the social work relationship.
2. Understanding one’s inner attitudes toward chemical dependency, mental illness, disability, and social disenfranchisement and how these might affect the social work relationship.
3. Affirming and respecting one’s own and others’ cultural expectations about how families ought to cope with conflict, bereavement, and communication of feelings.
4. Recognizing and critically evaluating ethical dilemmas in one’s own social work practice by using the NASW Code of Ethics.
5. Focusing on strengths both in oneself as a social worker and in the family receiving assistance.
2. Apply knowledge and skills to social work with families and service systems to:
1. Build interpersonal relationships characterized by warmth, genuineness, empathy, and cultural awareness.
2. Understand how to conduct a multigenerational family assessment in a way that reduces service barriers and promotes family strengths.
3. Draw on social work practice theories when considering optimal and individualized intervention alternatives, and use pertinent literature to guide practice.
4. Use interviewing skills that build relationships steeped in cultural awareness, respect for a family’s particular strengths and challenges, and a genuine desire to serve.
5. Implement specialized intervention skills such as motivating participation in treatment for chemical dependency and mental illness, family conflict mediation, suicide prevention, and elder/child abuse prevention.
6. Organize information (written and oral) for communication with other workers and service delivery systems.
7. Develop the awareness and skills required to work collaboratively across interdisciplinary service systems to meet the needs of multiple generations.
3. Integrate knowledge about human behavior in the social environment with practice by:
1. Drawing on the perspectives of multiculturalism and social justice when assessing a family’s particular challenges with regard to their local community and the wider society.
2. Applying an anti-oppression lens to analyze critically the effects of power, inequality, and diversity on organizational, community, and policy practice.
3. Articulating specific economic and social inequities that impact parents and grandparents who are caring for young children, family members caring for adult relatives with a disability, and multigenerational families supporting older family members who have become frail.
4. Using theoretical frameworks supported by empirical evidence to understand individual development and behavior across the lifespan and the interactions among individuals and between individuals and families, groups, organizations, and communities.
5. Applying and critically understanding relevant theories pertaining to groups, communities, and organizations, while recognizing their implications for social and economic justice.

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