Type: Presentation & Written assessment

Weighting: 40%

Length: PowerPoint Slides & 2000 word written submission

Unit Coordinator: Dr Agnieszka Sobolewska

Task Focus

You are required to work in group of four developing a PowerPoint presentation and a written assessment. There is no oral presentation.

Context and your role

You are located in a human service organization of your choice that provides a range of services across the state. Anglicare, Uniting Care, Centrelink are examples of the organisational contexts you may want to position yourself as being in, or you may choose another community or government agency.

You and your three social work colleagues have agreed to present at the annual interagency interprofessional forum. Each year, different social issues are explored at the forum, bringing practitioners’ voices and agencies’ perspectives. This year’s theme is the housing crisis and women. You are asked to focus on three theoretical approaches relevant to your social work practise in reference to a case study. This is to help others understand how social workers bring unique contribution among different professions and how they apply theories when working with complex issues.

The case study

Vicky is a 52 year old woman who recently has gone through a divorce with John to whom she was married for 29 years. Vicky feels lost in starting her life all over again.. She currently lives with her 27 year old daughter and her young family as a temporary measure. Other than high school, Vicky has no formal education. For many years, she was a busy stay at home mother, raising her three children who are now adults. Her employment history is tied to helping her ex-husband run his own business predominantly doing the admin and invoicing. As her ex-husband went bankrupt, with the divorce, there was very limited payout that she received. She has no property, and also needs to find employment.

Instructions

At the start of the term, you will be provided with instructions on Moodle on forming a group of four.

Your group will examine three theories of change that inform social workers’ understanding of individuals’ relationships with their social environment. You can choose from theories that are covered in the first half of the unit which include critical, feminist, and system theories. With theories as your starting point, you are to raise awareness of social work's theoretical eclecticism in order to understand the relationships between individuals’ lives and their relationships with their environments.

You will:

· Locate and agree on a regional organisational context, and service within that organisation, that provides the best base for this assessment task.

· Briefly examine the history of the three theories and how/why they became part of the social work profession’s eclectic theoretical mix.

· Examine how the theories help understand the client’s lived experience.

· Discuss the strengths and challenges of the chosen theories in relation to the organisational context and service selected.

One submission per group only is required. Please ensure the names of all people who have contributed to the submission are included on the coversheet.

Literature and references

In this assessment use at least 10 contemporary references to support your discussion. You may also use seminal scholarly literature where relevant. Suitable references include peer-reviewed journal articles as well as textbooks and credible websites. When sourcing information, consider the 5 elements of a quality reference: currency, authority, relevance, objectivity, and coverage. Grey literature sourced from the internet must be from reputable websites such as from government, university, or peak national bodies: for example, the Australian College of Nursing or the Australian Association of Social Workers.

Requirements

· Use a conventional and legible size 12 font, such as Times New Roman or Arial, with 1.5 line spacing and 2.54cm page margins (standard pre-set margin in Microsoft Word).

· Include page numbers on each page in a footer.

· Use formal academic language.

· Use the seventh edition American Psychological Association (APA) referencing style. The CQUniversity Academic Learning Centre has an online APA Referencing Style Guide.

· The word count excludes the reference list but includes in-text references and direct quotations.

Resources

· You can use unit provided materials and other credible sources (e.g. journal articles, books) to reference your argument. The quality and credibility of your sources are important.

· We recommend that you access your discipline specific library guide: the Nursing and Midwifery Guide; Social Work and Community Services Guide.

· We recommend you use EndNote to manage your citations and reference list. More information on how to use EndNote is available at the CQUniversity Library website.

· For information on academic communication please go to the Academic Learning Centre Moodle site. The Academic Communication section has many helpful resources including information for students with English as a second language.

· Submit a draft before the due date to review your Turnitin Similarity Score before making a final submission. Instructions are available here.

Submission

Submit your written assessment and PowerPoint presentation via the unit Moodle site in Microsoft Word format for the written assessment. One submission per group is required.

Marking Criteria

Refer to the marking rubric on the Moodle site for more detail on how marks will be assigned.

Learning Outcomes Assessed

· Compare the assumptions of influential philosophies and interpret how these different ideas inform specific theories that determine the delivery of human services and the practice of social work.

· Apply these theories to case scenarios in social work practice using an analysis informed by the values of the profession.

· Compare the philosophies, ideologies, and theories of social work and integrate them into your emerging professional practice framework.

Type: Survey

Due date: Time 09:00 am (AEST) Date Monday, August 29, 2022 (Week 7)

Weighting: 10%

Length: n/a

Task Description

The aim of this assessment is to undertake a survey that deals with group work undertaken in Assessment 1 by you and the members of your group.

1. This assessment requires that you undertake group assessment of the participation and contribution to the group learning assessment tasked in Assessment 1.

2. The survey link will be in your Assessment module in Moodle.

3. Within this survey you will have an opportunity to comment on your peers and overall group contribution and work product in Assessment 1.

4. Survey instructions will be contained within the survey itself.

5. The collation of average scores from this survey will form the basis of the 10% weighting.

6. You are not evaluating the accuracy of ideas or resources brought by individual members to the assessment you are evaluating participation and contribution.

7. Submit your survey as instructed by your Unit Coordinator.

Assessment Criteria

The survey will allow you to assess group members on the following participation criteria.

Scores will be based on the Likert Scale (1-2-3-4-5; 1= least likely; 5=most likely) in the survey as well as additional comments to justify your assessment of group and member’s participation and contribution.

Learning Outcomes Assessed

· Analyse your own performance based on feedback drawn from your involvement in professional learning contexts.

No Assessment Criteria

Weighting: 50%

Length: 1500 words

Task

The focus of this assessment is to use theory to inform practice. You will use story-telling theories to design an awareness raising project focusing on a social issue in your community. You will develop three workshops or events with an awareness raising or educational focus. You are not required to propose solutions.

Your role

Imagine that you are a social worker within a community agency who was assigned with the responsibility of developing a theoretically informed short-term project focusing on a prominent social issue in your community. You are writing a report explaining the needs of the community, the rationale for the project, and the three initiatives that you are proposing to include as part of the project.

Instructions

You are required to do the following:

1. Examine the community in which you live and identify one of the most prominent social issue.

2. Use a range of sources to describe the nature and extent of the social issue of concern. Sources might include media reports, local statistical data.

3. Propose a community awareness raising/community education project that will raise the community’s awareness of the issue and its social consequences. This will include the development of three events or workshops. You will discuss how the project will achieve its awareness raising aims.

4. Discuss how the story telling theories presented in this unit inform the design of the three events/workshops. Be mindful of the presentation of theoretical concepts to an audience unfamiliar with those perspectives and the ways in which language and concepts need to be conveyed.

5. Consider the diversity of your local community members, and discuss inclusion considerations when engaging people who identify as First Nations People or/and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Literature and references

In this assessment use at least 10 contemporary references to support your discussion. You may also use seminal scholarly literature where relevant. Suitable references include peer-reviewed journal articles as well as textbooks and credible websites. When sourcing information, consider the 5 elements of a quality reference: currency, authority, relevance, objectivity, and coverage. Grey literature sourced from the internet must be from reputable websites such as from government, university, or peak national bodies: for example, the Australian College of Nursing or the Australian Association of Social Workers.

Requirements

· Use a conventional and legible size 12 font, such as Times New Roman or Arial, with 1.5 line spacing and 2.54cm page margins (standard pre-set margin in Microsoft Word).

· Include page numbers on each page in a footer.

· You will write in the first-person as it is your reflection on your ‘self’.

· Use formal academic language.

· Use the seventh edition American Psychological Association (APA) referencing style. The CQUniversity Academic Learning Centre has an online APA Referencing Style Guide.

· The word count excludes the reference list but includes in-text references and direct quotations.

Resources

· You can use unit provided materials and other credible sources (e.g. journal articles, books) to reference your argument. The quality and credibility of your sources are important.

· We recommend that you access your discipline specific library guide: the Nursing and Midwifery Guide; Social Work and Community Services Guide.

· We recommend you use EndNote to manage your citations and reference list. More information on how to use EndNote is available at the CQUniversity Library website.

· For information on academic communication please go to the Academic Learning Centre Moodle site. The Academic Communication section has many helpful resources including information for students with English as a second language.

· Submit a draft before the due date to review your Turnitin Similarity Score before making a final submission. Instructions are available here.

Submission

Submit your assessment via the unit Moodle site in Microsoft Word format only.

Learning Outcomes Assessed

Compare the assumptions of influential philosophies and interpret how these different ideas inform specific theories that determine the delivery of human services and the practice of social work.

Apply these theories to case scenarios in social work practice using an analysis informed by the values of the profession.

Compare the philosophies, ideologies, and theories of social work and integrate then into your emerging professional practice framework.