SOC W 576: Contexts of Disability and Anti-Ableist Practice (3 credits)
Instructor: Clara Berridge MSW, PhD
SLN: 20175
Grad students along with juniors and seniors can self-register
This course is designed to deepen your understanding of disability and its relevance to social work. We will discuss disability’s recent socio-political history, models of disability, and current policy issues at the national, state, and local level. Emphasis will be placed on how
those policies and their implications for practice affect peoples’ daily lives. This course will engage a broad range of topics that are foundational to social work practice with disabled people, including activism for policy change, person-centered practice, employment, housing and
home and community based services, institutional and sexual violence, education and transition to adulthood. We will discuss the disability rights framework as well as a disability justice framework and learn from a diverse group of visiting practitioners, scholars, and advocates
about the connections between current policy issues and social services in practice. This course will facilitate critical reflection on your own professional stance in relation to these contemporary issues and trends.
Course goals:
§ To gain exposure to several areas of social work practice where applied knowledge about disability, ableism, and access barriers is needed
§ To examine contemporary issues and contradictions facing disabled people and service providers
§ To understand disability status in relation to other social movements for social justice
§ To consider divergent experiences of disability and intersections of racial inequities and disability
§ To build awareness of our own assumptions, beliefs, values, and behaviors with regard to disability and anti-ableism