INNOVATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL DIMENSIONS OF SOCIAL WORK I

The course is designed to provide students with specialist skills in international social work and in the management of aid relationships in cases where cross-cultural skills are required. These skills are vital for respecting identities and building aid processes based on real mutual trust and co-operation.
The first part of the course is dedicated to the study of the theoretical, methodical and ethical aspects of international social work. The second part of the course offers an in-depth analysis of social work involving immigrants, with a special focus on aid routes that require co-operation between services and institutions operating in different countries.

Expected learning outcomes

Knowledge and understanding
By the end of the course, students should know and understand:
- defining principles, theoretical, methodological and ethical aspects relating to international social work;
- some main areas of work in international social work;
- theoretical aspects, approaches and perspectives on social work with immigrants;
- theoretical models and techniques in social work from a transcultural perspective.

Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
By the end of the course, students will have acquired the skills to handle aid relationships in transnational contexts. They will also have acquired the ability to work in highly complex environments, where it is particularly important to recognise differences without resorting to stereotypes and where it is necessary to be able to apply their professional and personal knowledge in a way that respects differences.

Judgment skills
The course aims to improve the ability to critically and consciously use the theoretical and methodological frameworks required to carry out the role of social worker in an international context and, more generally, to acquire skills needed for intervention in situations of hardship, where it may be useful to adopt a transnational perspective to social work.

Communication skills:
at the end of the course, the student should have achieved an adequate level of mastery of the technical terminology, which they will be able to use in professional communications with fellow social workers, other professional figures and citizen-users.
The student will also have improved their ability to interact with peers in a critical and reflective way. They will also have had some practice in the public of elaborating on and summarising works on the theoretical-practical issues dealt with in class.

Learning ability:
the course promotes the ability to make a critical assessment of the texts under consideration and the other materials studied during the lessons. The course also fosters the ability to make connections between the various concepts addressed and the possibility of activating circular knowledge paths between theory and practice.

No specific courses are required as prerequisites.

- Understanding the role and objectives of international social work
- The main theoretical approaches to international social work
- Methodological aspects of social work in an international context
- Ethical implications of social work in an international context
- Immigration and social work
- Social work with immigrants and leading theories
- Social work with immigrants: ethical and methodological aspects
- Understanding and working with complexity in the case of aid processes aimed at immigrants.

- L. M. Healy, International Social Work. Professional Action in an Interdependent World, Oxford University Press, 2008. Capitoli 1 e 2.
- E. Barberis, P. Boccagni, Il lavoro sociale con le persone immigrate. Strumenti per la formazione e la pratica interculturale nei servizi, Maggioli, 2017.

Written examination divided into three open-ended questions relating to the topics in the course and covered in the reference readings: two of a theoretical nature and one linked to aspects that refer to the practice of the profession. The questions will be formulated in such a way as to bring out the ability to expound upon and make connections between the various topics dealt with by the candidate.

Frontal lessons, realized with slides and videos, will be alternated with didactic moments characterized by the use of typical instruments of participatory teaching. Among them: group re-elaboration work with plenary restitution, simulations and case studies.

Italian

Ca' Foscari applies the Italian Law n. 17/1999 and Law n. 170/2010.
If you have a motor, visual, auditory or other disability, or a specific learning disorder, we invite you to do two things:
1. Talk to your course instructor
2. Contact the office of disability support services: disabilita@unive.it 
Contact the office of disability support services (disabilita@unive.it) for general information: to find out what you are entitled to by law, and to request support and accommodation - www.unive.it/disabilita.

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