SWB221 Politics of Helping

Unit Outline: Semester 1 2022, Kelvin Grove, Internal

Overview

Human service and social work students must build foundational knowledge and critical skills in practice processes that solve social problems while serving the mission of social justice. This unit begins with a critical analysis of the politics of help and helping processes, and an exploration of diversity with reference to questions about power, privilege and oppression. Because of its importance in preparing you to undertake professional placements, the unit is strategically located in second year. Understanding and reflecting on diversity-of many kinds-is embedded in this unit.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit you will be able to:

1. Identify ways to approach the engagement of diverse groups, including those that are oppressed, stigmatised, alienated and/or 'hard to reach';
2. Demonstrate your ability to design field-specific assessments with (not just for or about) clients and communities;
3. Critically analyse social work and human service assessments, interventions and evaluations in light of contemporary challenges to social equality;
4. With reference to your own life experiences, illustrate your appreciation of diversity, privilege and oppression and their relevance to social work and human service interventions.

Content

Learning Approaches

The unit uses mixed modes of teaching and integrated learning and emphasises student involvement and interaction. Each week you will attend on-campus formal lectures (1.5 hours) and interactive tutorials (1.5 hours). There will also be zoom tutorials available for students to enrol in. Lectures and tutorial workshops will involve discussion of professional practice processes, focussing on the engagement, assessment, design and evaluation of interventions. Multimedia (power point, video material, podcasts), case studies, news items, class discussions and other interactive activities will be used. The unit will be supported by a Blackboard site and by online tools such as a discussion forum and podcasts. You will also be encouraged to link lecture material to real-world practices, especially those related to working with diverse, disadvantaged, oppressed and/or stigmatised groups.

Feedback on Learning and Assessment

The unit will involve both formative and summative assessment. The first piece of assessment has a formative and summative component whereby formative feedback is provided through interactive tutorial sessions, group discussions, engagement with learning activities and summative feedback is provided through individual written feedback on submitted work. Case studies are workshopped in tutorials.The final assessment is summative, and has a formative component whereby feedback on key learnings for professional practice will be offered in class and online.

Assessment

Overview

You undertake two pieces of assessment for this unit which build upon each other in terms of knowledge and skill development. The first assessment is a take home exam focused on examining the ways privilege and oppression can play out in the politics of the helping process; providing you a way of critically examining your own experiences of being 'helped'. For the second assessment you will identify a specific diverse population and explain and analyse how a critical social worker or human service worker might work with this group. There is an expectation that student work is of a high standard commensurate with second year professional practice knowledge and skills development and sound grasp of unit readings and lecture material.

Unit Grading Scheme

7- point scale

Assessment Tasks

Assessment: Take home exam

Take home exam comprises of twenty multiple choice questions (20 marks) examining privilege and oppression and their relevance to social work and human service practice; and short answer questions (20 marks) examining privilege and oppression in your own life.

With reference to prescribed readings and other relevant material, critically analyse the operations of privilege and oppression in your own life, now and in the past. Consider your own experiences of being 'helped', whether you have been treated as 'different' and how that experience had a positive/negative impact on your life. Consider whether your problem was 'solved'. 

Assessment: Intervention plan

Critical practice intervention plan. Using a critical social work and human services approach, nominate a specific diverse population and identify how you would work with this group in relation to a major social problem they face. Pay attention to how you would try to engage and assess this group in the selected intervention, and how you will evaluate its 'success' or 'failure'. This is an assignment for the purposes of an extension. 

Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is a commitment to undertaking academic work and assessment in a manner that is ethical, fair, honest, respectful and accountable.

The Academic Integrity Policy sets out the range of conduct that can be a failure to maintain the standards of academic integrity. This includes, cheating in exams, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion and contract cheating. It also includes providing fraudulent or altered documentation in support of an academic concession application, for example an assignment extension or a deferred exam.

You are encouraged to make use of QUT’s learning support services, resources and tools to assure the academic integrity of your assessment. This includes the use of text matching software that may be available to assist with self-assessing your academic integrity as part of the assessment submission process.

Breaching QUT’s Academic Integrity Policy or engaging in conduct that may defeat or compromise the purpose of assessment can lead to a finding of student misconduct (Code of Conduct – Student) and result in the imposition of penalties under the Management of Student Misconduct Policy, ranging from a grade reduction to exclusion from QUT.

Resources

Resource Materials

Prescribed text(s)

Pease, B., Goldingay, S., Hosken, N. & Nipperess, S. (Eds.). (2016). Doing Critical Social Work, Transformative Practices for Social Justice. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin.

Recommended text(s)

Maidment, J., & Egan, R. (Eds.). (2015). Practice skills in social work and welfare: More than just common sense (3rd ed.). Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin.

O'Hara, A., & Weber, Z. (2011). Skills for human service practice: Working with individuals, groups and communities (2nd ed.). South Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.

Risk Assessment Statement

The only risks associated with this unit are those related to disclosing information about past and current experiences of privilege and oppression through an individually submitted assignment.

Course Learning Outcomes

SW04 Bachelor of Social Work

1. Critique and apply coherent theoretical, practical and contextually relevant social work knowledge, skills and values, and cultivate a commitment toward meeting diverse clients and community needs. [Knowledge, Practice, Values and Disposition]
   Relates to: Take home exam
2. Construct and implement strategies for engaging in critical thinking and decision-making, utilising advanced research knowledge and skills to inform culturally safe practice, and promote social justice from diverse perspectives. [Practice, Knowledge, Values and Disposition]
   Relates to: Intervention plan
3. Access, evaluate, and utilise relevant social work information that informs and assists in intra- and inter-professional communication in a range of contexts, through effective oral, written and digital interactions. [Practice, Knowledge]
   Relates to: Intervention plan
4. Design a plan of action for working within socially progressive, anti-oppressive, culturally safe and ethical practice, that embody an autonomous and collaborative evidence-based orientation to social work, integral to the standards of professional social work practice. [Values and Disposition, Practice]
   Relates to: Intervention plan
5. Critically examine tenets of diversity and diverse perspectives in social work, and advocate for a socially just society and the promotion of human dignity that reflect different social, political, cultural and historical circumstances, on the beliefs, values and aspirations of various groups, including Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations. [Values and Disposition, Knowledge, Practice]
   Relates to: Take home exam

SW05 Bachelor of Social Work (Honours)

1. Critically evaluate theoretical, practical and contextually relevant social work knowledge, skills and values and, as a change facilitator, meet diverse client and community needs that promote social justice
   Relates to: Take home exam
2. Formulate and implement strategies using advanced knowledge and research skills to analyse, consolidate and synthesise social and practice evidence to generate solutions and to inform professional practice and decision-making
   Relates to: Take home exam, Intervention plan
3. Construct and implement strategies for practising collaboratively and independently, focused on socially progressive, anti-oppressive, culturally safe and ethical practice, integral to the standards of professional social work practice
   Relates to: Intervention plan
4. Access, evaluate and utilise social work information to advocate for a socially just society and the promotion of human dignity and worth that reflect different social, political, cultural and historical circumstances, on the beliefs, values and aspirations of various groups, including Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations
   Relates to: Take home exam, Intervention plan