Course Description
This course offers students the opportunity to explore best-practice approaches for counselling individuals. Designed to complement and further develop the concepts of SOWK 2122, this course focuses on current evidence based-best practice approaches such as cognitive behavioural counselling, brief counselling, crisis intervention, mediation and motivational interviewing for dealing with a variety of practice challenges. The course will enable social work students to increase their skill versatility when responding to the individual, systemic, diversity, cultural, and spiritual difference of clients.
Course Content
Course content will be guided by research, empirical knowledge and best practice. The following values and principles, consistent with professional standards, inform course content.
- Effective social workers are informed by evidence-based research to guide their practice.
- Proficient counsellors have the capacity to be versatile and draw on an eclectic variety of approaches.
- Understanding individual and cultural differences is an essential element of professional practice.
- Professional development requires an ongoing commitment to developing self-awareness, making oneself available for feedback, monitoring and evaluating one’s competence, as well as utilizing supervision, professional literature, and training opportunities.
- Communication and counselling skills are practiced in the context of the Social Work Code of Ethics.
Learning Activities
Lecture
Role playing
Multi-media
Small group discussion.
Means of Assessment
This course will conform to Douglas College policy regarding the number and weighting of evaluations. Typical means of assessment may include some or all of the following:
- Written papers
- Exams
- Presentations (individual or group)
- Skill demonstration
- Video recording and analysis.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Describe the elements of cultural competence including the use of spirituality in counselling;
- Demonstrate basic interviewing and counselling skills introduced in SOWK 2422;
- Define evidence based best practice;
- Describe how to use research and evidence based best practice;
- Demonstrate an understanding of the goals and skills of crisis intervention;
- Demonstrate knowledge and skills to intervene in suicide risk situations;
- Describe strategies for dealing with angry and potentially violent clients;
- Discuss the elements of the transtheoretical model of change (stages of change);
- Demonstrate motivational interviewing skills, cognitive behavioural counselling skills, brief counselling, effective mediation skills, and knowledge of strategies for engaging “hard to reach” clients.
Textbook Materials
Text(s) such as the following, the list to be updated periodically:
Miller, W. & Rollnick, S. (2013). Motivational interviewing: Helping people change (3rd ed.). New York: Guildford Press.
Beck, J. (2011). Cognitive behaviour therapy: Basics and beyond (2nd ed.). New York: Guildford Press.
Marini, I., & Stebnicki, M. (2008). The professional counselor’s desk reference. New York: Springer.