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Graduate Course Proposal Form Submission Detail - ISS6942
Tracking Number - 2615
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Current Status:
Approved by SCNS - 2012-05-15
Campus: St Petersburg
Submission Type: New
Course Change Information (for course changes only):
Comments: St. Pete approved. To USF Sys 1/18/12. to SCNS 1/26/12. SCSN appd eff 6/1/12
Detail Information
- Date & Time Submitted: 2011-09-08
- Department: Social Work
- College: AS
- Budget Account Number:
- Contact Person: Susan Allen, MSW, PhD
- Phone: 7278734969
- Email: sfallen@mail.usf.edu
- Prefix: ISS
- Number: 6942
- Full Title: Field Practice and Evaluation in Infant-Family Mental Health
- Credit Hours: 3
- Section Type: I -
Internships (Including Practicum)
- Is the course title variable?: N
- Is a permit required for registration?: Y
- Are the credit hours variable?: N
- Is this course repeatable?:
- If repeatable, how many times?: 0
- Abbreviated Title (30 characters maximum): Field and Evaluation IFMH
- Course Online?: O -
Online (100% online)
- Percentage Online: 0
- Grading Option:
R - Regular
- Prerequisites: CLP 6462 Working with Families of Infants and Toddlers
- Corequisites: none
- Course Description: This course requires interning for a minimum of 10 hours a week or working in an agency serving infants/toddlers and their families. It includes content on program evaluation, staff and agency collaboration, and self-assessment of IFMH practices.
- Please briefly explain why it is necessary and/or desirable to add this course: Needed for new program/concentration/certificate
- What is the need or demand for this course? (Indicate if this course is part of a required sequence in the major.) What other programs would this course service? USFSP graduates hired to work in agencies providing direct clinical support, and case management services to families of infants and toddlers have no educational background in infant-family mental health. There is hence a training gap for Pinellas County that would be addressed by this course
and the certificate program in which it will ultimately be included. Agencies may also collaborate with granting agencies to have current personnel complete the course. Currently, no existing psychology or
health science course offered at USFSP or in the USF system explicitly focuses on supporting coparenting in families of infants and toddlers, despite the critical need for a workforce capable of understanding and
working successfully with the unique needs, dynamics, strengths and challenges presented by diverse family systems caring for infants and toddlers. The understandings students will gain in this course will
promote their work with families in settings including primary health care, early care & education, foster care, & home-visiting services.
- Has this course been offered as Selected Topics/Experimental Topics course? If yes, how many times? No
- What qualifications for training and/or experience are necessary to teach this course? (List minimum qualifications for the instructor.) Minimum of 2 years of post-MSW experience in social work practice. Experience with program evaluation research.
- Objectives: 1. Promote knowledge and skills for collaborating with families of infants and toddlers and interdisciplinary teams to provide services.
2. Develop beginning skills for joining with families, their young children, and other professionals when providing services.
3. Promote knowledge of program evaluation methods and the skill of developing a proposal to evaluate an IFMH program.
4. Promote cultural sensitivity in providing services for families of infants and toddlers.
- Learning Outcomes: Knowledge Outcomes:
1. Understand models of interdisciplinary collaboration within and between agency systems.
Measured by: Discussion Board Assignments; Agency/Community Meeting Observation assignment
2. Demonstrate an awareness of assets and challenges to working collaboratively with those from other professional disciplines.
Measured by: Discussion Board Assignments; Agency/Community Meeting Observation assignments
3. Understand the importance of involving all major stakeholders in designing and implementing a program evaluation.
Measured by: Discussion Board Assignments; Proposal for Program Evaluation
4. Demonstrate an awareness of methods of program evaluation to assess program processes or outcomes in delivering infant-family mental health services.
Measured by: Discussion Board Assignments; Proposal for Program Evaluation
5. Demonstrate knowledge of research and theories relevant to program evaluation of IFMH services.
Measured by: Discussion Board Assignments; Proposal for Program Evaluation
6. Understands strategies for involving informal and formal support systems in providing IFMH services.
Measured by: Supervisor Evaluation; Self-assessment paper
7. Understands the process of partnering with families to establish child-centered and family-centered goals.
Measured by: Supervisor Evaluation; Self-assessment paper
8. Is aware of the components for a developmental assessment of infants and toddlers at various ages and of models for assessment of family functioning.
Measured by: Supervisor Evaluation; Self-assessment paper
Skill Outcomes:
1. Demonstrate an ability to observe and evaluate interdisciplinary collaboration within or between agency systems.
Measured by: Discussion Board Assignments; Agency/Community Meeting Observation assignment
2. Shows respect and understanding of roles in communicating with other staff regarding IFMH practices.
Measured by: Discussion Board Assignments; Agency/Community Meeting Observation assignment; Self-assessment paper, Supervisor Evaluation
3. Demonstrate the ability to design a program evaluation to assess program processes or outcomes in delivering infant-family mental health services.
Measured by: Discussion Board Assignments; Proposal for Program Evaluation
4. Demonstrate beginning skills of joining with infants/toddlers and their families in agency practice.
Measured by: Supervisor Evaluation; Self-assessment paper
Value Outcomes:
1. Demonstrate awareness of the importance of confidentiality in dealing with client and agency matters.
Measured by: Supervisor Evaluation; Self-assessment paper
2. Recognizes the need to maintain a non-judgmental attitude toward infant/toddlers and their families.
Measured by: Discussion Board assignments; Supervisor Evaluation; Self-assessment paper
3. Understands ethical practices of conducting program evaluations.
Measured by: Discussion Board Assignments; Proposal for Program Evaluation
4. Demonstrates sensitivity and awareness of client’s race, class, gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and/or special needs, and responds appropriately.
Measured by: Supervisor Evaluation; Self-assessment paper
- Major Topics: 1. Introduction to the course and field experience
2. Review of the principles of Infant-Family Mental Health Practice
3. Assessing agency applications of IFMH
4. Interdisciplinary collaboration within & among agencies
5. Applying Bronstein’s model
6. Assessing challenges for interdisciplinary collaboration and making recommendations
7. Purposes for program evaluation of programs serving infants/toddlers & their families/ How will this benefit the families?
8. Engaging appropriate stakeholders
9. Determining research problem, i.e., possible barriers to coparenting involvement in agency services
10. Determining research questions
11. Selecting appropriate evaluation design
12. Methods of data collection
13. Ethical challenges of program evaluation
14. Schon’s model of the reflective practitioner
15. Models of self-assessment in clinical practice
16. Obtaining desired outcomes with families
17. Outcomes of collaborative community systems of care for families of infants & toddlers
18. Planned termination of services
19. Course Wrap-up
- Textbooks: Texts – Brun, C. F. (2005). A practical guide to social service evaluation. Chicago: Lyceum Books.
Perry, D. F. & Kaufmann, R. K. (Eds.). (2007). Social & emotional health in early childhood : Building bridges between services & systems. Baltimore : Paul H. Brookes.
- Course Readings, Online Resources, and Other Purchases: Additional required readings are listed in the course schedule. They will be posted on Blackboard.
- Student Expectations/Requirements and Grading Policy: Evaluation Criteria
Discussion Board Participation (3 for 3pts. each) 9%
Interdisciplinary Meeting Observation Paper 16%
Program Evaluation Proposal 25%
Self-Assessment Paper 30%
Completion of Field Work 20%
Total 100%
- Assignments, Exams and Tests: Required Assignments
1. Discussion Board assignments –
The purpose of the discussion board assignments is to integrate your understanding of
the material in this and the previous IFMH courses with your experiences at the agency. The instructor will post questions that will promote interactions with other students about agency experiences and application of course materials. Discussion board entries will be evaluated in terms of the use of professional and respectful language and correct grammar; a total of at least 75 words for each question answer, organized logically and clearly in respect to expression and sequencing of ideas; responsiveness to other student entries; content that relates appropriately to the focal topic; applies concepts covered in readings and online modules; and demonstrates critical thinking skills.
2. Agency/Community Meeting Observation assignment –
Attend an agency or community meeting for professionals that represents at least two different disciplines and/or roles and includes discussion of services for infants/toddlers and their caregiver system. This can be a coalition or task force of community agencies that discuss general needs and services for this population or an internal agency meeting such as a case conference focusing on the needs of a specific child and family system. This meeting may also include the family system, though that is not required. Write a paper, about 5 to 7 pages in length that uses headings and addresses the following:
a. Introduction – Provide date, time, location, purpose, agency/ies represented, and the staff roles of those attending. If you had a professional role in this meeting, describe that.
b. Summarize the content of the discussion of the meeting, highlighting the information provided by staff/family in differing roles.
c. Evaluate the overt and covert interactions during the meeting applying Bronstein’s model to assess interdependence, newly created professional activities, flexibility, collective ownership of goals, and reflection on process.
d. Critique the interactions given your evaluation in section C. How well did the interdisciplinary collaboration work to meet the needs of the infant-family population in this community or the specific infant/toddler and support network that was the focus of the conference? Detail what promoted collaboration and what presented barriers in terms of Bronstein’s categories of professional roles, structural characteristics, personal characteristics, and history of collaboration.
e. Recommend changes in the interactional process to improve collaboration to benefit infant/toddlers and their families.
Cover page is required. If outside resources are used, provide in-text citations and a reference page following APA guidelines.
3. Proposal for Program Evaluation [Note: This assignment involves only proposing an evaluation and does not require implementation of the plan.]
Develop a proposal for a program evaluation that would assess the process or outcomes for providing effective infant-family mental health services at the student’s field practice agency. Students will turn in a paper of about 10 pages that details the program evaluation plan. The paper will include the following sections, following Brun’s model of social service evaluation (See Brun, Appendix C):
a. Describe your agency setting and the problem that the evaluation would address.
b. Review previous research that provides relevant background for your study.
c. Specify the research questions
d. Specify the major stakeholders and your strategies for engaging them in planning and implementing the evaluation.
e. Specify values and/or theories concurrent with infant-family mental health practice that would serve as guiding principles for the evaluation.
f. What data collection procedures would you use? How would you conduct the evaluation ethically to respect the confidentiality and rights of clients?
g. What strategies would you use to disseminate the findings and implement recommendations?
h. References cited - Note you need to cite and reference texts and readings from the current and previous IFMH courses and at least 4 outside sources that were not required reading for the IFMH sequence. These can be cited in any section of the paper. However, it is most important to reference sources in reviewing previous research and specifying theories.
4. Self-Assessment Paper –
The purpose of this paper is to assess your own development of knowledge, values, and skills related to effective Infant-Family Mental Health practice. There will be three main sections to this paper, which will be about 10 pages in length:
Section 1 – Prior to discussing your Field Evaluation with your supervisor, you will write a self-assessment of the goals in the sections provided in the evaluation. You need to include at least one specific example of your agency experiences relevant to each section: Values, Professional Development, Field Instruction and Supervision, Interviewing and Relationship Skills, Assessment, Intervention, Case Management, and Policy and Administration.
Section 2 – Answer questions specific to your IFMH practice that will be adapted from Perry, Kaufman, & Knitzer, Appendices B & C. and provided by the instructor.
Section 3 - Describe in detail the service delivery process with one coparenting system and infant/toddler that you had contact with during your field work experience that illustrates your understanding of Infant-Family Mental Health principles.
5. Satisfactory completion of field work at approved agency (See form in Appendix A):
a. Completion of at least 150 field hours (average of 10 hours a week) as verified by work or field placement supervisor (See hour logs, Appendix B)
b. Average rating of 3 or better on supervisor evaluation (See Evaluation, Appendix C)
FIELD WORK REQUIREMENT –
All students must complete at least 150 hours in a program that serves infants/toddlers and their
families/caregiver systems. If a student would like to complete these hours at their place of employment, they must receive supervision by a graduate prepared professional. The supervisor must sign the Field Work Agreement (Appendix A) attesting to the agency’s ability to provide the student with 150 hours of relevant experience. The student and instructor must also approve the placement by signing the form. In the case that a student does not work at an appropriate agency, the instructor will collaborate with the student arrange a placement at an appropriate field agency in the student’s general geographic community. In order to confirm the placement, the student, supervisor, and instructor must sign the Field Work Agreement.
- Attendance Policy: Students are required to watch all online video modules.
Course Attendance at First Class Meeting – Policy for Graduate Students: For structured courses, 6000 and above, the College/Campus Dean will set the first-day class attendance requirement. Check with the College for specific information. This policy is not applicable to courses in the following categories: Educational Outreach, Open University (TV), FEEDS Program, Community Experiential Learning (CEL), Cooperative Education Training, and courses that do not have regularly scheduled meeting days/times (such as, directed reading/research or study, individual research, thesis, dissertation, internship, practica, etc.). Students are responsible for dropping undesired courses in these categories by the 5th day of classes to avoid fee liability and academic penalty. (See USF Regulation – Registration - 4.0101,
http://usfweb2.usf.edu/usfgc/ogc%20web/currentreg.htm)
Attendance Policy for the Observance of Religious Days by Students: In accordance with Sections 1006.53 and 1001.74(10)(g) Florida Statutes and Board of Governors Regulation 6C-6.0115, the University of South Florida (University/USF) has established the following policy regarding religious observances: (http://usfweb2.usf.edu/usfgc/gc_pp/acadaf/gc10-045.htm)
In the event of an emergency, it may be necessary for USF to suspend normal operations. During this time, USF may opt to continue delivery of instruction through methods that include but are not limited to: Blackboard, Elluminate, Skype, and email messaging and/or an alternate schedule. It’s the responsibility of the student to monitor Blackboard site for each class for course specific communication, and the main USF, College, and department websites, emails, and MoBull messages for important general information.
- Policy on Make-up Work: Preparation and Make-Up Work.
Students are expected to have completed all readings and written work by their assigned date. Because the due dates for each element of the portfolio are already known, late submissions for any assignment will be penalized 2 points for each day late. Make-ups for final exam will only be allowed in very special circumstances arranged ahead of time with the instructor..
Recordings of the Class.
All unauthorized recordings of class are prohibited. Sharing of materials used in Blackboard Powerpoints with other individuals or agencies without expressed instructor consent is prohibited. Recordings that accommodate individual student needs must be approved in advance and may be used for personal use during the semester only; redistribution is prohibited.
Academic Dishonesty Policy
See the USF Graduate Catalog.
Students are reminded that all program participants have signed the school of social work statement on plagiarism and academic dishonesty and have been provided with this statement as well as the NASW Code of Ethics.
The University of South Florida has an account with an automated plagiarism detection service that allows instructors to submit student assignments to be checked for plagiarism. I reserve the right to 1) request that assignments be submitted to me as electronic files and 2) electronically submit assignments to the plagiarism service. Assignments are compared automatically with a huge database of journal articles, web articles, and previously submitted papers. The instructor receives a report showing exactly how a student’s paper was plagiarized.
Notes or tapes are not permitted for purposes of sale.
- Program This Course Supports: Does not specifically support any degree program but can provide electives for degree programs. Supports the IFMH Certificate Program, currently under review.
- Course Concurrence Information: This course is unique without specific concurrence with other programs however it may be taken as an elective for a masters program in psychology or related disciplines.
- if you have questions about any of these fields, please contact chinescobb@grad.usf.edu or joe@grad.usf.edu.