Photo
Motivation to Teach Social Action:
As a social work lecturer teaching ethics, human rights, and clinical practice, participating in this institute will allow me to operationalize the NASW mandate for systemic change right on our campus. By learning to guide students through a real-world social action campaign to address the critical lack of evening childcare for late-night student-parents at CSI, I will teach future social workers how to bridge the gap between clinical empathy and tangible institutional advocacy while directly fulfilling CSWE Competency 3: Advance Human Rights and Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice and Competency 5: Engage in Policy Practice for our department.
Course Description:
This co-curricular workshop series is a hands-on project held during club hours where social work students can practice making real change on CSI campus. Students will design and launch a real campaign to fix a major crisis: the lack of evening childcare for late-night student-parents. Right now, because the campus daycare center closes early, desperate student-parents are forced to ask professors to let their children sit in classrooms, or kids are frequently left waiting in campus hallways, and corridors during late-night classes, where parents constantly have to leave classroom lectures to check on their child.
Complementing the ethics, human rights, and clinical competencies taught in SWK 322, SWK 365, and SWK 651, students will learn the concrete mechanics of institutional reform by: (1) Gathering the Facts: Surveying evening classes to show how a lack of childcare causes stress and forces student-parents to drop out. (2) Finding the Decision-Makers: Mapping out the campus hierarchy to figure out exactly which administrators or student government leaders have the power to change childcare hours and funding. (3) Taking Action: Writing professional proposal memos, gathering student signatures, and researching external grants to fund the financial gap needed to keep the childcare center open later. (4) Meeting Leaders: Sitting down with campus administrators to present data, funding solutions, and community petitions to push for a permanent change.
This project puts the social work code of ethics into action, giving future social workers the real-world skills and confidence needed to fight for their clients and break down unfair barriers throughout their career.
Taught By:
Sonia Brown
Doctoral Lecturer
Social Work
College of Staten Island/CUNY
Read profile here.