I’ll see you all in a little while.

Unit Introduction and What You Will Learn

In week four, we continue with our consideration and work on understanding and working with families. You have to do readings outside the textbook. First, Chovil (2009) presents a report that explains some of the best practices for working with and engaging families. It also provides context for what roles families can play in developing and promoting services. As you read Anderson-Butcher et al. (2004), we will also be the first to focus on the connection that families might have to other types of groups. Next, you can watch a short documentary about services for families, produced by the Administration for Children and Families (2015). During class, we will also spend time discussing potential family roles and specific tools for family work.

The following is the agenda for week four:

• Wraparound model for working with clients
• Dysfunctional family roles
• Holistic Wellness Wheel Activity
• Some standard techniques for working with families

Learning Objectives:

• Differentiate between family-focused, family-centered, and family-driven approaches to engagement.
• Identify and describe the ten principles and four phases of the wraparound process.
• Recognize common roles in dysfunctional family systems and critique their limitations.
• Facilitate and reflect on activities that promote holistic wellness and strength-based family interactions.

Unit Assignments

Content

• Read Chovil (2009) and Anderson-Butcher et al. (2004)
• Watch Administration for Children and Families (2015), and optionally Strengths-Based Engagement with Families, and Changing Problematic Behaviors, Principles of Operant Conditioning

A-01: Class Engagement and Attendance

Attend Class

A-02: Reading Engagement and Check-in Questions

Complete the reading engagement and check in questions at W-04 A-02 Reading Questions. Because I’m late in posting this, it is due Monday at 8 AM this week.

Unit Resources

I don’t have a citation for where I originally got the Wellness Wheel, but many places use this type of thing. You can see the version we used in class. I used the implementation teaching about this activity as my teaching demonstration as a part of my hiring process for Heritage. You can see the related presentation Helping Understand Balance: Using the Holistic Wellness Wheel as a Tool for Practice and Assessment if you would like to see more information about the tool.

This week, you are watching Administration for Children and Families (2015) Building Community, Building Hope. This is an excellent short documentary that is about 20 minutes.

As we talk about supporting families in changing behavior, one of the strategies is operant conditioning. I made a short YouTube video about positive and negative reinforcement and positive and negative punishment that you can watch. Changing Problematic Behaviors, Principles of Operant Conditioning that students can watch to get some practical ideas of what this is.

I made a video about Strengths-Based Engagement with Families that talked about barriers to engagement by families and some strategies for supporting engagement from families.

Next week, I ask you to watch a documentary. It isn’t free anywhere online, but I am offering a watch party to see if. If you don’t watch it, in the check in question for next week you can also just say you couldn’t watch it. Bring your own popcorn, and we will watch on Zoom at my personal room - https://heritage.zoom.us/my/dr.jacob at 7 PM on Friday 2/13.

All of the presentations for this class can be found at https://presentations.jacobrcampbell.com. This week’s slides are Spring 2026 SOWK 487w Week 04 - Further Practices for Engaging with Families.

The Lecture Videos tab in the MyHeritage course is where you will be able to find class recordings. The video this week is at [Spring 2026 SOWK 487w Week 04]().

To-Do Lists

• Attend class
• Read the articles, watch the video, and engage with the additional content
• Complete the check-in questions for this week