Spring 2025 SOWK 487w Class 04 Weekly Email
Email sent on to SOWK 487
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 to go over outside of the textbook. First, Chovil (2009) a report that helps explain some of the best practices in working with and engaging families. It also provides context to 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, Administration for Children and Families (2015). During class, we will also be spending time talking about potential family roles and some specific tools for doing family work.
The following is the agenda for week four:
- Specific tools for working with families
- Dysfunctional family roles
- Some standard techniques for working with families
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 Sunday 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.
All of the presentations for this class can be found at https://presentations.jacobrcampbell.com. This week’s slides are Spring 2025 SOWK 487w Week 04 - Further Practices for Engaging with Families.
You can find the recording of all of our classes in the lecture videos tab for this course.
Reference
Administration for Children and Families. (2015). Building Community, Building Hope [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/IuSG7MY8pfI
Anderson-Butcher, D., Khairallah, A. O., & Race-Bigelow, J. (2004). Mutual support groups for long-term recipients of TANF. Social Work, 49(1), 131-140. https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/49.1.131
Chovil, N. (2009). Engaging families in child & youth mental health: A review of best, emerging and promising practices. The F.O.R.C.E. Society for Kids’ Mental Health, 44 pages. https://www.nctsn.org/resources/engaging-families-child-youth-mental-health-review-best-emerging-and-promising-practices
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
