Course
Wellness: Self and Professional Practice
Faculty
Applied Community Studies
Department
Community Social Service Work
Course code
CSSW 1221
Credits
1.50
Semester length
Flexible delivery ranging over 2 to 15 weeks
Max class size
30
Method(s) of instruction
Lecture
Typically offered
To be determined
Overview
Course description
This course emphasizes a developmental approach to self-care and self-awareness in professional practice. It provides students with a framework to explore and apply wellness themes. Strategies to prevent and manage workload stress will be explored. Students will learn to use reflective writing as a tool for personal wellness and professional practice.
Course content
The following global ideas guide the design and delivery of this course:
- Maintenance of personal wellness is an essential component of competent human services practice.
- A state of wellness (or lack of) influences the ability to deliver services to others.
- Wellness involves self-awareness, values clarification and self-responsibility.
- Wellness includes team building, collaborating and decision-making.
- One builds a sense of wellness from reflective practice that integrates the theories of wellness into professional role.
- On-going practice of wellness sustains vitality for continued work in the profession.
Learning activities
- Lecture
- Experiential classroom activities
- Group presentations
- Guest speakers
- Audio-visual presentations
Means of assessment
This course will conform to Douglas College policy regarding the number and weighting of evaluations. Typical means of evaluation would include a combination of:
- Personal Wellness Plan
- Participation
- Group Presentation
- Self-evaluation
This is a mastery/non-mastery graded course.
Learning outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, within the following content areas, the student will be able to:
- Wellness and Self Care
- integrate basic self care into daily life
- demonstrate understanding of wellness as an important aspect of social service work
- design a personal wellness plan, including stress management
- Reflective writing skills
- demonstrate reflective writing skills
- Prevention of burnout, compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma
- identify the risks of burnout, compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma for social service workers
- explore strategies for preventing burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma
- Educational presentation on wellness topic
- demonstrate ability to collaborate in the design and delivery of an educational presentation
- Self-awareness and boundaries
- demonstrate understanding of personal and professional boundaries
- demonstrate understanding of self-awareness at it relates to professional practice
Textbook materials
TBA