DESCRIPTION,OBJECTIVES, and CONTENT OVERVIEW
for courses offered in the
Family Health and Support Worker
Applied Technology Diploma (ATD)
 |
||||
|
Program Goal and Target Audience
The overall goal of the Family Health and Support Worker Associate Technical Diploma (ATD) is to develop and increase the competence and job performance of family support workers who provide outreach and support services to childbearing families and their children (0-5) in public health, child development, and family service programs. The ATD has three components: (a) a set of three generalist courses that have been adapted to meet the needs of the ATD, (b) a set of maternal and child courses, and (c) a community-based practicum.
Coursework
Introduction to Human Services for Families and Young Children (3 credit hrs)
Course Description:
This course reviews the history of human services with particular emphasis on the field of maternal and child services and health. Various models of service delivery will be investigated. The roles, functions, and duties of human service professionals and maternal and child specialists will be explored. The development of a professional identity and the ethics of practice will be discussed. Personal qualities essential for being an effective helping professional will be considered.
Course Objectives:
Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Describe the history of the human services/maternal and child support movement.
- Discuss the various human services delivery systems that are currently in use today.
- Describe the training, functions and practices of workers in the field of human services/maternal and child health.
- Discuss the ethical and legal issues relevant to provide human services, particularly as it relates to pregnant women and young children.
- Appreciate the dynamics and treatment needs of specific groups, e.g. the homeless, abuse victims, individuals with drug and alcohol problems as these relate to maternal and child service populations.
- Examine one’s attitudes and biases as they relate to the professional role of a human services practitioner.
- Understand the need for professional boundaries in the practice of human services
Content Overview:
Generic Goals of the Helping Professions; Brief History of Human Services; Developmental Theories: Ecological theory of Development, Erikson’s Theory of Life Span Development, Freud’s Theory of Personality Development; The Many Facets of Professional Helping; Characteristics of Effective Helpers; Growth of Maternal and Child Services; The Helping Process; Challenges of Working with Families; Helping Skills for the Practitioner; Helping Skills for Loss and Crisis; Helping Skills for Positive Action and Behavior Change; Ethical Issues & Legal Requirements in Human Services; Working with Families as Systems; Parenting Styles and Child Development; Principles of Case Management; Working within a System; Integrating Theory and Practice; Social Factors Influencing Client Needs
Basic Communication and Interpersonal Skills (3 credit hrs)
Course Description:
This course is designed to facilitate the student’s development of the skills necessary to interact effectively with families and clients while working as a human services/maternal and child services professional. The student will learn and practice basic communication and interpersonal skills that are necessary in providing competent, effective mental health and social services.
Course Objectives:
Completion of this course should enable the student to:
- Demonstrate communication and interpersonal skills that facilitate therapeutic interaction with clients.
- Demonstrate an understanding of one’s own motives in client interactions and an appreciation of the need to keep one’s personal agenda from interfering with professional practice.
- Examine one’s attitudes and biases as they relate to the professional role of a human service worker.
- Utilize supervisory feedback to develop one’s professional skills
- Demonstrate genuineness, congruence, empathy, warmth, acceptance, and respect in interview simulations.
- Demonstrate the setting of professional boundaries and the appropriate use of self-disclosure in therapeutic interactions.
- Appreciate feedback from fellow students and offer constructive criticism to one’s peers.
Content Overview
Multicultural Perspectives in Human Services:
Implications for Practice in Maternal and Child Health Services (3 credit hrs)
Course Description:
This course addresses cultural diversity and its implications for effective counseling and human service practice. It considers the psychological impact of factors such as sex, race, ethnicity and culture, religious preference, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, and physical disability. It explores common stereotypes and out-group prejudices and how to overcome them in counseling. Finally, it reviews counseling and teaching issues and strategies for diverse families and clients.
Course Objectives
- To increase the student’s knowledge of the multicultural explosion in the United States and its significance for human services practice
- To increase the student’s awareness of the complexity of culture-related issues in counseling
- To facilitate the student’s awareness of cultural bias toward clients from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds.
- To assist the student in identifying his/her personal values, assumptions, and priorities regarding culture and to help the student to understand his/her own biases and ethnocentrism.
- To help the student to perceive personal problems from different cultural perspectives.
- To introduce the student to issues of mental health and psychopathology from a cultural perspective.
- To familiarize the student with the effective use of therapy and other interventions with diverse populations.
- To help the student to identify and to expand his/her skills in working with clients from different cultures.
- To assist the student in becoming aware of culturally appropriate assessment methods.
- To assure that the student is aware of the ethical standards that guide the provision of multicultural human services.
Content Overview
Principles for Understanding and Working with Families (3 credit hrs)
Course Description:
This course presents family theories most often used by human service workers as the framework for working with families. Three of these theories – the ecological model of human development, family systems theory and empowerment theory will be used to help students understand the complexity of family development and adaptation and the impact of stress on the family system. The student will learn how these theories can be used in the development of family-professional collaboration and application of family-centered practice. Students will learn and practice skills for empowering families to assess their strengths, concerns and priorities and to plan for how to meet their needs.
Course Objectives
Completion of this course should enable the student to:
- Describe various family forms respectfully, showing awareness that adults’ and children’s needs can be met by various types of families, all of which have strengths
- Explain ways family systems influence family members
- Recognize the range of roles among family members and which ones are helpful or problematic for the young developing child.
- Reflect on and discuss feelings and insights about personal family experiences relate to topics discussed in this unit and recognize the personal impact of these experiences
- Describe benefits of and ways to empower families
- Begin a relationship with the family in a way that communicates respect for the family’s culture and preferences
- Understand and use a range of options for assessing family strengths, concerns and priorities
- Assess formal and informal support systems within the family and the community
- Recognize factors that affect family functioning and describe strategies for identifying and strengthening family capabilities and resources
- Work with families in ways that build their capacities to meet their needs directly through healthy interdependence with family, friends and the community.
Content Overview
I. Ways of thinking about and working with families
- Importance of the family
- Common theories about families – ecological model of human development, the family as a system, empowerment, family centered practice
- Definitions and constellations of families, their members and roles
II. Using a family development approach in Family Health and Support practice
- Recognizing and strengthening family capacity and participation
- Assessing family concerns, priorities and resources
- Employing a partnership approach to problem solving
- How to avoid family dependence
Working with Families in the Perinatal Period:
Impact on Mother, Child, and Family (3 credit hrs)
Course Description:
Pregnancy is an exciting and important time in the life of a woman, her unborn child, and family members. This course reviews central issues that affect the family, particularly mother and child, before conception through the end of the first month after birth. The student will learn information to enhance their ability to support a woman as she gets ready for pregnancy, undergoes many changes in her body and the way she feels while pregnant, while in labor, and following delivery. The student will learn what a woman should not do when pregnant, how to enable the pregnant woman to take of herself to have a healthy baby, warning signs of problems, and care and feeding of the new baby. Students will practice skills for assessing a mother’s emotional adjustment to the birth of her infant, the interactions and bonding behaviors with her child, and the infant’s physical adaptations and social responsiveness.
Course Objectives
Completion of this course should enable the student to:
- Recognize characteristics of a normal healthy sexual relationship and signs of an abnormal or abusive sexual relationship
- Understand basic anatomy and physiology of male and female reproduction systems and recognize symptoms or problems that require attention by a health care professional
- Discuss transmission and effects of sexually transmitted infections
- Describe benefits of planning a pregnancy and healthy behaviors that promote optimal pregnancy outcomes
- Understand important characteristics and events occurring in the perinatal period
- Discuss how these events affect the pregnant woman, the unborn child, and individual family members
- Describe key elements of the labor and birthing experience and their influence on mother and infant
- Describe typical physical and psychological changes that occur during the first month after delivery – for mother, child, and the family
- Demonstrate ability to recognize when the events of the perinatal period are working well and when they are not working well and to apply learned knowledge appropriately
Content Overview
Reproductive Health: reproductive anatomy and physiology, sexuality, sexually transmitted infections
Planning a Pregnancy: benefits, characteristics of healthy lifestyles, risk factors and conditions
Pregnancy: changes and adaptations that occur for the mother, the fetus, and the family in the first, second, and third trimester
Labor: recognizing preterm labor, getting ready for the hospital, supports a mother may need
Birth: the normal birthing process, unexpected problems that may occur
Postpartum Events: the new mother’s adaptations, the newborn’s adaptations
Newborn Care: feeding, newborn behaviors and needs, safety issues
Grief and Loss: family responses to loss, helpful and supportive responses of a support worker
Reproductive Choices and Family Planning: advantages of spacing pregnancies, options and common myths
Working with Families in the Early Childhood Period:
Impact on Child Health, Development, and Parenting (3 credit hrs)
Course Description:
This course addresses three important issues of early childhood: health, development, and parenting. Common health problems of infancy and early childhood are discussed along with important health promotion and disease prevention strategies for creating safe and nurturing environments. Content will address general social, environmental and biologic influences and factors that collectively impede or facilitate individual and family development, the major periods and domains of child development and the importance of early learning experiences that enhance brain development. Students will learn about characteristics and importance of parent-child interactions as well as other cultural and social influences on parenting skills. The depth of developmental knowledge provided is intended to enhance the skills of the family health and support worker, to increase their ability to provide anticipatory guidance and teaching and to empower the parent-child relationship.
Course Objectives:
Completion of this course should enable the student to:
- Recognize children in need of emergency health care.
- Provide health education and information to families on a variety of health issues affecting young children.
- Demonstrate understanding of the critical nature of early influences and early development of young children.
- Describe the characteristics and sequence of developmental skills for typically developing young children at various ages.
- Use knowledge about child development to empower and teach parents.
- Recognize personal experiences and influences associated with personal attitudes about parenting.
- Understand factors that influence the development of parenting skills and appreciate the wide range of parenting styles.
- Recognize strengths of a parent-child interaction, what is working and what is worrisome.
- Use observed child behaviors and emergence of normal developmental events to model positive parenting practices and behaviors.
- Demonstrate understanding of positive behavioral supports that can influence and increase desired behaviors
Content Overview
I Child Health Issues
- Common health problems of infancy and early childhood
- Health promotion and disease prevention for infants and young children
- Creating a safe and nurturing environment
- Dental care and oral hygiene issues
- Challenges in infant and child nutrition
II. Child Development Issues
- Historical foundations for viewing childhood
- Biological and environmental foundations of development
- Major theories of child development and the strengths and shortcomings of each
- Interdependency of all domains of development – physical, cognitive, emotional and social
- Characteristics and sequences of development
- Physical development in infancy and toddlerhood
- Cognitive development in infancy and toddlerhood
- Emotional and social development in infancy and toddlerhood
- Physical development in early childhood
- Cognitive development in early childhood
- Emotional and social development in early childhood
III. Parent Development Issues
- Cultural and social influences on parenting roles, skills and discipline
- Anticipatory guidance and parenting
- Characteristics and importance of parent-child interactions
- Use of positive behavioral supports to address undesirable behaviors in young children
Field Placement (3 credit hrs)
Course Description:
This course involves students being assigned by HCC to an affiliate field placement site and having supervised contact with clients under the auspices of that agency. This field placement allows the student to experience and practice screening and assessment procedures, adult learning principles, and health education teaching functions in maternal and child service settings. The field placement or practicum experience will be augmented by biweekly seminars during which students will review their experiences and receive additional content not covered during the previous 6 ATD courses. The field placement is designed to enable students to apply specialized content to a specialized population.
Course Objectives
Completion of this course should enable the student to:
- Demonstrate understanding of basic health and wellness concepts that influence childbearing families and young children
- Demonstrate effective home visitation skills including preparation, ethics, etiquette, infection control, and boundary issues.
- Conduct screening and health assessments for physical growth and development, nutritional status, developmental milestones and sensory development of infants and young children, postpartum adaptations, mental and emotional well-being, parent-child interaction, the home environment.
- Know when to use standardized assessment and when to use more individualized assessment techniques.
- Recognize common pitfalls and errors in collection and interpretation of assessment information
- Clearly establish the purpose of a home visit and develop a written plan for the visit that can be measured for effectiveness.
- Provide individualized education and emotional support for childbearing families with young children.
- Based on information gathered from the family assessment and planning process and from the service delivery team, plan and conduct health promotion teaching, selecting appropriate educational and health resources, and evaluate outcomes of teaching
- Assess adult learning readiness and teaching needs and measure effectiveness and progress in teaching and learning
Content Overview
I. Health and Wellness Issues
A. Defining health and disease and their interaction
B. Structure and function of body systems
C. What are “healthy” behaviors for childbearing families with young children?
D. Protecting yourself and others from disease and infection
II. Screening and Assessment Methods and Practices
A. Common methods for screening and assessing (observation, testing,
interviewing)
B. Potential errors and misinterpretation of assessment findings
C. Do’s and don’ts for collecting information
D. Common tools for assessing health, development, parent child interaction
E. Translating findings into action: identifying teaching targets
III. Principles of Home Visiting and Client Encounters
A. Do’s and don’ts of effective home visitation
B. Establishing the purpose and steps of a successful home visit
C. Applying a family development approach to home visiting
IV. Strategies for Teaching and Nurturing Families
A. Review of adult learning principles
B. Assessing learner readiness
C. Recognizing and adapting materials, information and methods to address
individual needs
D. Measuring effectiveness and progress in learning
