COMMUNITY
TCU Social Work Students visit the UN
For a group of senior social work majors, the road to graduation led to New York City to participate in the Global Social Work Student Conference. In March, eleven students led by Dr. Tracy Dietz and Professor Leslie Lovett of the social work department in Harris College had the chance to visit New York and experience the workings of the United Nations.
The Conference was a part of the 25th annual Social Work Day at the United Nations and discussed the importance of global social work. The keynote speaker, Mitchell Goldman, is a film director and an advocate for children. His projects deal with human themes of overcoming hardships and overcoming adversity.
“It was very cool to be at the UN with so many social workers from all over the world,” said social work student Joy Borjes. “I thought it was really neat because it showed that, while we were all diverse individuals, we have so much in common. Because we were all social workers, we had the same values, knowledge and skill sets that everyone else had. We have a common concern for the welfare of all people, and we acknowledge that every person has a unique worth.” (more)
Miller Clinic expands bilingual reach across full lifespan
The minority population is expanding — and so is TCU’s Miller Speech and Hearing Clinic. Long known for its speech pathology work with bilingual children, the clinic is now setting itself apart with bilingual speech pathology training for the full lifespan.
“We really are looking at a lifespan perspective, preparing students to work with non-English speakers and bilinguals from birth to old age — and that’s not something that’s offered at many other programs nationwide,” said Maria L. Muñoz, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, who joined the department in 2006 as an associate professor. “We are one of the oldest bilingual programs, one of the most longstanding, and I think we have tremendous loyalty from the bilingual speech pathology community in the area.”
The Miller Speech and Hearing Clinic — the training site for upper level undergraduate and graduate students in TCU’s communication sciences and disorders program in the Harris College of Nursing and Health Sciences — offers a variety of speech, language and hearing screening, evaluation and therapy services to the local community. Undergraduate and graduate students provide the services under the direction of faculty members. (more)
A stepping stone into a social work career
The Harris College of Nursing & Health Sciences’ department of social work is dedicated to providing students a well-rounded education to prepare them for graduate school or a career in the field of social work. Part of that education requires senior social work majors to practice their knowledge and skills learned in the classroom in a field education program.
This program is a part of the requirement for accreditation by the Council on Social Work Education, by which TCU’s Harris College is accredited.
The Council’s purpose in field education states it, “is an integral component of the social work education anchored in the mission, goals, and educational level of the program. It occurs in settings that reinforces students’ identification with the purposes, values, and ethics of the profession; fosters the integration of empirical and practice-based knowledge; and promotes the development of professional competence.”
At TCU, Leslie Lovett, the Director of Field Instruction, organizes all field education internships and supervises them as students complete their senior year and move toward graduation. Although the CSWE does not tell the department how to teach, it does dictate what to teach, and field education is an important capstone to students’ foundation of social work, Lovett said.
Each senior takes classes in policy, practice, human behavior, research and ethics dealing in social work, and the field education program allows them to put into practice all that he/she has learned in class. A field instructor, who is a professional in the field and a volunteer for the program, is assigned to each senior, and throughout the year they work together in a social work agency to further the skills of the student in the field, as well as with a research project.
The research project is often generated around a specific question that the student would like to answer about work in their chosen agency. Together with the help of Lovett and the field instructor, the student will conduct research to answer the question. These projects are often helpful not only for students, but for the professionals as well. (more)
Emergency preparedness in the Muslim community
As part of the nursing curriculum at the Harris College of Nursing, students take a community health practicum course. This semester a group of nursing students tackled the area of safety and emergency preparedness in the Muslim community, specifically at Al-Hedayah Academy in Tarrant County.
The project was partnered with organizations like Tarrant County Public Health, Fort Worth Police and Fort Worth Fire Department, and Med-Star emergency Services. Emergency preparedness in Muslim communities is often overlooked, because the community tends not to live in a centralized location. By holding a fair in an Islamic center, the community can learn how to prepare for an emergency in a central and familiar location.
In response to a successful emergency preparedness fair held by a TCU clinical group in the fall 2007 semester at another Islamic center, this semester’s clinical group offered a similar educational fair for the Al-Hedayah Academy, the first full-time Islamic school in Tarrant County.
The academy is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and offers pre-kindergarten through ninth grade classes to 187 students. Its mission is to provide students of diverse backgrounds with educational opportunities by inspiring students to pursue excellence in a risk-free environment, conducive to the development of a strong Islamic moral character.
Nursing students at TCU researched the Islamic community, surrounding area, and the Al-Hedayah Academy to determine the available resources pertaining to health and safety, then developed a fair surrounding their conclusions. (more)
