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Canyon College

COURSE SYLLABUS: Crisis Intervention I

Course Title: Department: Instructor:

Crisis Intervention I Social and Behavioral Sciences / Social Work Alice Yick Flanagan, Ph.D., M.S.W. E-Mail - Vita

Overview:

This course will provide a basic overview of crisis theory and interventions when working with clients who come to our practice in crisis. Crisis interventions address urgent crisis situations that are triggered by a specific life event or situational event. It is characterized as temporary or short-term. Therefore, practitioners using crisis interventions focus on short- term interventions to assist the client to return to a state of equilibrium or state of stability.

One of the premises of this class is that the more information workers have about particular social problems (i.e., depression, suicide, mental illness) and its symptoms, the more helpful the worker will be. Therefore, this course will highlight basic facts about depression, suicide, mental illness, and chronic illness as well as issue of death and dying.

Learning Objectives:

1. By the end of the course, students will have a basic understanding of crisis theory. Students will learn about the basic assumptions of a crisis.
2. Students will come away with a basic understanding of the different types of clients who may present themselves in a crisis situation. In order to assist clients effectively, the worker needs to have a basic understanding of the issue on hand. Students, for example, will be given preliminary information of the depression, suicide, domestic violence, and severe mental illness. It is the belief that this knowledge provides a launching board to help the client.
3. Students will have a starting foundation of the types of interventions that are amenable for a variety of crisis interventions.

Course Format:

1. Lecture on the web
2. Weekly e-mails to the instructor

Required Texts: Online Bookstore

** Lee Ann Hoff (1995). People in Crisis. (4th Edition). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
ISBN #: 0787900842

** Alice Hoffman (1988). At Risk. Berkeley Books/Published in arrangement with G.P. Putnam's Sons.
ISBN #: 0425117383

** Selected articles from Northernlight.com. This is a very unique database where you can search by topics. It contains articles on web-sites and in academic journals. Articles from academic journals are in their Special Collections, and the cost is very reasonable ($3.95 for a long article). Some articles for this course are in Northernlight. Visit www.northernlight.com. Type in the title of article, and place quotation marks around the title in the search engine. You will have to establish an account by using your credit card.

** There are also selected articles from non-profit, commercial, and government web-sites. These are free.

Supplemental Texts:

These books are not required, but you might find them helpful in your social work practice. In addition, you may find it useful as reference for your final assignment. You will find them in the bookstore.

Albert R. Roberts (1996). Crisis Management and Brief Treatment. New York, NY; Wadsworth.
ISBN #: 0830414290

James K. Zimmerman (1995). Treatment Approaches with Suicidal Adolescents. New York, NY: Wiley, John, and Sons.
ISBN #: 0471102369

I have also included articles for supplemental reading for certain lectures. These are not required.

Other Requirements for Class

This class will require that you purchase speakers for your computer. Nowadays, you can purchase speakers for you computer for $10-$15. It is a worthy investment. There will be activities during the lecture, where I will ask you to link to a web-site that streams an audio/visual component via the Internet. You will be able to hear news excerpts and documentaries. You will also be able to see pictures as well, but unfortunately, the pictures tend to be blurry and jagged. In addition, if you decide to continue to take more online courses, audio and video streaming will be more commonplace.

When you get onto these web-sites, you can download free versions of Real Player or Quicktime, which is the software that provides the steaming audio/visual component via the Internet.

Course Requirements and Evaluations

1. Weekly responses to questions/exercises in study guide to be submitted by e-mail -- Please refer to the study guide. There are a total of 6 exercises in the study guide. Each exercise is due on Friday at 5:00pm (Pacific Standard Time) at the end of the week of that lecture topic, unless otherwise indicated.

Responses should be e-mailed to agyick@canyoncollege.edu and sent in attachment form in Microsoft Word 7.0. I will do my best to return them via e-mail within a week with my comments.

2. Annotated bibliography -- This is due Week 5 of the course. Refer to the guidelines at the end of the course outline.

3. Final paper -- Refer to the guidelines at the end of the course outline.

Students will be evaluated for grades using the following criteria:

** Annotated Bibliography (15%)

** Weekly responses to questions/exercises in the study guide (35 points). There are a total of 6 exercises that have to be completed. All assignments are worth 6 points with the exception of the first assignment (i.e., introductions), which is worth 5 points.

** Final paper (50 points)

There are a total of 100 points for the class. The following points determine the final grade for the class:

97-100 points = A+
96-92 points = A
91-89 points = A-
88-85 points = B+
84-81 points = B
80-74 points = B-
73-70 points = C+
69-65 points = C

Virtual Office Hours:

Office hours are on Tuesdays from 3-4pm (Pacific Standard Time). I will definitely be available to respond to e-mails. However, I check my e-mail several times during the day throughout the week. Therefore, feel free to drop me an e-mail with questions about lectures, questions/ exercises in the study guide, or just to say hello.

If students want to contact me via the telephone to discuss any issue, please e-mail me and we can schedule a telephone meeting.

Course Outline:

Week 1: Hoff, Chapter 1	** Introductions to the course, review class format, required texts ** What is a theory? ** Introduction to Crisis Theory
Week 2: Hoff, Chapter 2	** Crisis Theory (Continued)
Week 3: Hoff, Chapter 3 and pp. 105-119	** Crisis Intervention Model
Week 4: Visit: www.mentalhealth.com/bookah/p44-dq.html#Head2 Skim through this web-site. It provides an excellent overview of depression and treatment. Hoff, Chapter 6 and 7 **Supplemental** Bloch, D.S. (1999) Adolescent suicide as a public health threat. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, 12(1) Available at Northern Lights Visit: www.northernlight.com Valente, S.M. and Saunders, J. M. (1997). Managing depression among people with HIV disease. Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, 8(1), 51-68. Available at Northern Lights. Visit: www.northernlight.com	** The Depressed and Suicidal Client: What do you need to know about the depression and suicide?
Week 5: National Institute of Mental Health. "Schizophrenia" Visit: www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/schizoph.htm	** The Client with Severe Mental Illness
Week 6: Hoff, pp. 255-265 "Population Reports: Ending Violence Against Women" Visit: www.jhuccp.org/pr/l11edsum.stm. Please skim through Chapters 1-7, the Pullout Guide, Figures, and the Highlights. This is an excellent summary of domestic violence.	** The Domestic Violence Victim: What are the facts of domestic violence? How do you assess for domestic violence? What do you do for the domestic violence victim?
Week 7: Hoff, pp. 337-349 Alice Hoffman (1988). At Risk. Berkeley Books/Published in arrangement with G.P. Putnam's Sons. This is an excellent novel about an average American family whose lives suddenly spin out of control when they learn that they eleven year old daughter, Amanda, is diagnosed with AIDS.	** Clients with Terminal Illness: Death, dying, and bereavement
Week 8: Hoff, pp. 241-247 “What is Child Maltreatment?” Visit: www.calib.com/nccanch/pubs/factsheets/childmal.cfm “Primary Prevention of Child Abuse” By Lesa Bethea Visit: www.findarticles.com Type the title in the search box. (Do not put quotation marks around the title) “Statutes-at-a-Glance: 2001: Mandatory Reporters of Child Abuse and Neglect” Visit: www.calib.com/nccanch/pubs/sag/manda.cfm	** Child Abuse

Annotated Bibliography:

This assignment will prepare you for the final assignment. Please select a minimum of 7-8 citations (books, journal articles, chapters in books, Internet articles) that you will use for your final paper. An annotated bibliography contains the citation source as well as a short description of the source. This is due the 5th week of the course.

The following is an example of an annotated citation:

Yick, A. and Agbayani-Siewert, P. (1997). Perceptions of domestic violence in a Chinese American community. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 12(6), 832-846.

This article describes findings of a telephone research study examining 31 Chinese American males and females' definitions, contextual justifications, and beliefs about the causes of domestic violence. The authors explained their findings using cultural explanations and how these findings shaped directions for future research and social work practice.

Final Assignment

It is expected that all assignments be in American Psychological Association (APA) format. When you cite your references, it needs to be in APA format. If you do not know what this is, you should go to your library and ask the reference librarian. Most libraries will have the APA guidelines. Or you can visit the following web-sites for summaries of the APA guidelines:
http://www.apastyle.org/fifthchanges.html
http://www.ithaca.edu/library/course/apa.html
http://www.spu.edu/depts/library/general_reference/r_style_manuals.htm
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_apa.html
http://www.bothell.washington.edu/library/guides/BusWeb/BusWebCiteOnlineAPA.htm
(summary for citing references)

Please be sure to proofread your final paper before you e-mail them to me. Check for any grammatical and spelling errors. You might have a friend or family member read your paper to make sure that concepts are clear and succinct and that you are conveying what you want to.

Be sure that you e-mail the attachment in Microsoft Word 7.0. Please do not send cut and pastes because I will be inserting comments in the text of your attachments, and this is not possible if you send me a cut and paste in the body of your e-mail.

If for whatever reason, you have difficulty in meeting the deadline of the final, you must notify me two weeks in advance, and we can make some alternative arrangement. In the event of emergencies, please notify me as soon as possible.

** All final assignments are due on the Friday of the 9th week by 5pm (Pacific Standard Time)**


Final Assignment
All assignments should be typed, double-spaced, and a minimum of 8 pages, but no more than 10 pages. You must use APA format. Be sure to include references (this should also be in APA format).

1. Choose one of the following topics:

a. Elder abuse
b. School violence
c. Adult or child with recently diagnoses with AIDS
d. Victim of Rape
e. Patient diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease
f. Patient diagnosed with manic-depressive illness

2. Provide overall factual information about the problem. Be sure to include the following:

** Scope of the problem. In other words, how large is this social problem?
** Signs or indicators of the problem. In other words, what are the warning signs social workers should be aware of
** Effects or consequences of the problem on the individual (i.e., patient or client) and/or on the family
** Any other information you feel is important for social workers to be aware.

3. Describe the different forms of crisis intervention that social workers can engage in.

4. Since referring clients to other community resources for immediate or follow-up service is such an integral part of crisis intervention, include a list of resources for your topic that social workers can use in your community. Be sure to provide a short description of the service.