Hey! I hope you all had a great weekend! Don’t forget to do your reading quiz before class this week. I went through and added all of them to the assignments so you can work ahead if you desire. Don’t worry too much about them. The questions aren’t worth that many points. You can do it with a partner or open book if you’d like. I just want you to read the textbook chapters. On Wednesday after it is due, you will be able to see if you missed any questions.

Unit Introduction and What You Will Learn

Week three of SOWK 486 is about understanding what direct social work practice and some of what makes social workers unique in our helping style. We will start with an exercise, considering how you have been helped in the past. Many clients we work with as social workers are mandated to participate in services involuntary in some manner. We will discuss how to engage with them through some best practices. The agenda for the session is as follows:

• How we help
• Orienting perspectives for social work practice
• Evidence-based practice
• Involuntary clients
• Ecological Systems Model
• Social work jobs and roles

Learning Objectives

• Identify and describe key roles, settings, and practice areas where social workers operate, including local examples.
• Explain the purpose of social work and how the profession addresses prevention, restoration, and remediation.
• Analyze the ecological systems model and orienting perspectives (e.g., strengths-based, cultural humility, trauma-informed) as frameworks for understanding client interactions.
• Reflect on personal and professional alignment with the NASW Code of Ethics and its core values.
• Describe strategies for building trust and promoting cooperation with mandated clients.

Unit Assignments

A-01: Class Engagement and Attendance

Attend class

A-02: Chapter Reading Quizzes

Complete W-03 A-02 Hepworth et al. (2023) for Chapter(s) 01 and 02 is due at 5:30 PM before class via MyHeritage

Unit Resources

You can listen to a podcast episode for this week’s reading Deep Dive on Chapters 1 and 2: Direct Social Work Beyond the Medical Model, or see the entire series Deep Dive: Hepworth et al. (2023).

I’m encouraging people to consider attending the State of Our Youth Symposium. It will be a great event and you will learn a lot about the what trends look like for youth in our community. Registration closes September 21st. You can see the event flier or the BFHD Website, but the details are as follows:

📅 Date: September 29, 2026
⏰ Time: 8:00 AM–12:00 PM
📍 Location: Three Rivers Convention Center

Register for the State of Our Youth Symposium and I hope to see some of you there.

In your ethics class, you will likely read the entire code of ethics, but it is useful to read through it and familiarize yourself with the values and expectations of being a social worker. You can find it online National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics. Your readings next week will also focus more on this.

We are going to talk about the roles that social workers take on today. I made a video a while back, The 15 Hats (ahem, Roles) of Social Workers, that also talks about this if you want to use that as a primer.

All of the presentations for this class can be found at https://presentations.jacobrcampbell.com. This week’s slides are Fall 2026 SOWK 486w Week 03 - Direct Social Work Practice.

The Lecture Videos tab in the MyHeritage course is where you will be able to find class recordings. The video this week is at [Fall 2026 SOWK 486w Week 03]().

I'll embed the video after class.

To-Do List

• Attend class on Wednesday at 5:30 PM
• Read Hepworth et al. (2023) chapters one and two
• Complete your reading quiz by 5:30 PM before class via MyHeritage
• Consider watching my video The 15 Hats (ahem, Roles) of Social Workers
• Consider listening to the Deep Dive on Chapters 1 and 2 podcast episode