Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work

The social work program aims to provide and formulate for the graduate an academic professional personality by seizing the opportunity through the implementation of the following objectives:

• Cultivate an academic personality (personal trait), based on self-awareness and self-perception, sufficient to enable graduates to apply their competencies and ethics, when working with client and systems
• Develop in the graduate the motivator searching, research and self-scientific development, as a dominant part anchored in his professional academic personality
• Cultivate significant professional development in which personal and scientific skills are promoted for the sake of qualified professional practice
• Develop the personal and professional capacity to recognize, analyze and understand Comprehensively diversities in the society, and handle the cases and the causes in the community accordingly

• Develop practice skills as an entry-level professional in the general practice of social work within the institutions, groups, families, and communities, by a systematic approach, includes significant processes of assessment, planning ‘implementation, evaluation and phasing out.
• Foster the ethical dimension of the social worker personality as an integral part of her/his attitudes, based on the general human and social values, the social work profession principles, and code of ethics.
• Apply professional knowledge, skills and tools, supported by different ways of thinking (analytical, critical, lateral …) in order to develop the ability to work effectively with multiple systems and roles (formal and informal) within organizations, and understand organizational culture and cultural contexts of behaviours in the community
• Develop the professional capacity, take a significant part in delivering the   services, in an efficient and satisfactory manner, and initiate a continuous improvement in the services by monitoring and evaluating.

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The students who will completed this program works  on three levels according to major methods in social work profession ‘ the case work method ,the group work method and the community work method.

the social workers career will take place in key positions and functions within  several areas and fields:

Family, school, health areas, children elderly, women, girls, community projects, rehabilitation centers, people with special needs, youth, human rights, welfare programs and other areas regarding needs, rights and human relations.

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Introduction to Social Work : (0403132)

This a basic course, where basic principles, the student in this course will be exposed to basic theories and practices of social work as a developing profession. In the first semester the learning begins with the introduction to the various definitions of the profession and to understand the mission and the rationality of the social work as an element in the social development and growth of individuals, families, groups and communities, the course will deal also with key components of the profession ,such as ,functions and roles, basic methods , basic components of the intervention process and special emphasis on values and ethic

Scientific Research  : 0403133

This course is designed to introduce “scientific thinking” and the main components of social science research design and analysis. The main objective of this course is to teach how to do research by focusing on the various steps a researcher must take to have a sound research design. Related to this, the major goal of this course is to provide a working knowledge of how to read, interpret, critique, do, and present social science research.

To achieve this goal, we examine not only the aspects of design the exploratory method (what), descriptive method (how), and the analytic method (why), but also methods for collecting and analyzing data both qualitatively and quantitatively. Our focus on research design will allow us to explore how our research question drives our choice of method rather than our method driving our research question.

Social work communication skills : (0403135)

The course will primarily discuss the core elements of professional, effective and useful practice and highlighted to the students the importance and the essentiality of communication skills in daily life and work.

The course will examine the productive patters of communication skills as well as the counterproductive patterns   of communication skills.

The course will provide the students with different approach of defining communication skills and will presents the main essential skills needed for practicing professional direct practice in social work.

The course will emphasize understanding the topics: listening, the four types of responding to empathic listening, paraphrase, clarification, summarization, and reflection. Also the course will discuss various related topic: the nature of verbal and non-verbal behavior, reframing, confrontation and challenging, self-disclosure, empathy, and the component of structured interview.

Throughout the course we will examine the main challenges and barriers facing the practitioners in their contacts with vulnerable people.

Case work 1 (0403231 )

This course is the first among a series of 4 modules, which mainly concentrate the foundation of direct social work practice by discussing the professional characteristics of social work and the essential requirement to perform direct social work practice, mainly by addressing primarily the subject of the body of knowledge, the definition, the 4 main functions (recognizing, exploring, handling, and predicting) alongside discussing the uniqueness and the shortcomings of social work knowledge and the ways to enrich the students body of knowledge.

Also this course will examine in details the five theoretical practical perspectives in social work (feminist perspective, strength, general system, eco system, and ethnic sensitive perspective).

The course will give the students the opportunity to discuss relevant issues such social work process vs outcome, nihilism in social work, internalization in direct social work practice and its relevance

Basic Statistics in Social Sciences ( 0403222 )

An introductory course that assumes no prior knowledge of statistics but does assume some knowledge of high school algebra. Basic statistical concepts and methods are presented in a manner that emphasizes understanding the principles of data collection and analysis rather than theory

This course is deals with the descriptive components of statistics , this  component is emphasizes on nature ,key concepts ,tools and interpretations of elementary descriptive statistics.

Measures of location ,desperation and exploratory data analysis , Elementary probability theory, discrete and continuous probability models. Inferential statistics, point and interval estimation, tests of statistical hypotheses .

Introduction to Sociology (0419101 )

This course will identify sociology, its cognitive foundations, in addition to presenting the meaning of society and its social structure, levels of social relations and patterns of groups.

  Course objectives:

• Explain the meaning of sociology, its principles, basic concepts and the ways they are related.
• Explain the meaning of society, its structure, functions, and components.
• Define the basic social processes, show the types of social relations, and the foundations on which they are based.
• Explain the process of organizing, and the resulting social concepts.
• Explain the concept of culture and how it is related to to personality and society
• Explain the change and development processes.
• Adopt positive attitudes towards society and local groups. The development of the ability to use the acquired capabilities to serve and develop society.

se work 2: 0403232

This course is taken in conjunction with field training, the major contents of this course will mainly discuss and provide the students with main conception, ideas,   and tools of practicing direct social work practice with individuals, and families.

The course will compare case work with group work and community work and also infuses contents on values, ethics, skills, and enrich the student knowledge about the theoretical practical perspectives in social work needed to perform major roles in direct practice.

The course will also concentrate on the engagement process and engaging clients as the outset of clinical therapeutic process.

Introduction to Social Welfare  :   0403251       

This course surveys the history of social welfare development, focusing first on poverty as fundamental threat to the human society, the students will gain comprehensive understanding of the implications and effects of the poverty phenomena on human existence .

The course will introduce the class to a variety of human approaches to coping with poverty, from Queen Elizabeth I’s Poverty Law 1601 to the basic development of the welfare state to the social democratic approach and the development of ideological, economic, religious approaches to social welfare, and human wellbeing ,based on human needs, wants and rights .

Social Welfare : 0403252

The course presents a practical approach to the sense of social welfare and wellbeing, students will comprehensively understand the meaning of the concept of social justice, and examine the meaning of the principle of just distribution to national wealth, the knowledge that they will gain ,enabling  them to understand re-distribution strategies of national wealth, such as labour salaries , market prices, taxes and welfare programs aimed at providing fair and advanced services at the individual and family level.

Students in this course will critically examine the practical significance of the welfare state, based on the social democratic ideology, in parallel with other ideological alternatives, such as communism, capitalism and the right to Islam.

Students in the Welfare Course will be exposed in a basic way, to the issues and challenges of the 21st century in terms of individual well-being and social well-being, such as, globalization, privatization, free market, standard of living and quality of life.

The course will carefully examine the profession of social work, and the roles of social facts in the proposed context.

Case work 3 ( 0403333 )

This course is the third module of social work which will emphasize on the main stages of clinical practice, namely assessment stage, the planning stage, and the negotiating and contracting stage.

The first stage will be address the subject assessment, the definitions assessment as a process and outcome, assessment vs. diagnosing , assessing strength , assessing abnormality, assessing role performance, assessing suicidal  risks, assessing self , assessing cognitive, behavioral, and emotional behavior, assessment errs and incomplete assessment, how to avoid assessment’s errs.

Later on we will address the subject of planning and the feasibility of the plan, planning errs, main principle of planning.

By the end of the course we will discuss the stage negotiating and contracting by providing the students with details typology of contracting and the importance of this stage.

Social policy and globalization: 0403254

This course will examine the nature of the term social policy by analyzing related aspects as well as studying the historical aspect and the evolution of social policy, with this regard we will present to the student the importance and the necessity and aims of studying social policy.

The course will devote major discussion about the social, economic, political, environmental, and demographic factors that shape, formulate and engender social policy.

The course will give the exclusive opportunity to the students to learn about social policy in Palestine and abroad, we will highlight the dimensions and characteristics of social policy in Palestine and abroad mainly of Arab world and European countries.

Also we will dedicate major part of the course in studying the globalization, nature, motives, consequences and the impact on improving the wellbeing of people of all races.

Scientific Research Methods in social work : 0403321

Methods of scientific research in social work, and an introduction to the foundations of writing the proposal, terminology of the subject, types of research designs, data collection, formulating hypotheses in research, and some basic concepts in statistics, leading to writing a research proposal .

Course objectives :

The general objective of the course is to build the research capacity of the students, to write a proposal .

•  Recognizing the concepts and procedural terms used in the field of social research .
•  Acquisition of proposal writing skills such as: defining the study problem and its questions, formulating hypotheses .
• Writing a proposal in sociology .

learning outcomes

By the end of the course, it is expected that the student will be able to : Write a proposal in one of the topics of sociology or community service

Case work 4 : 0403334

This course will emphasizing the heart of helping process by dealing primarily and discussing the 3 consequential stages: the intervention, termination, and evaluation.

The course will start by presenting the prior guidelines and conditional consideration for intervention, later on we purport to introduce /infuse the main model of intervention such as reality therapy, cognitive therapy, client centered therapy and building self-esteem.

Also we will discuss in detail the termination and evaluation stages conceptually and practically and emphasizing the components of each term and focusing on issues such as the planned change and the unplanned change, the under involvement of clients, and when there is no improvement issues, the failure to make change and attain changes 

Course: Fields of Social Work :  0403335

This course aims at introducing the learner with fundamental knowledge in the field of social work. It also aims at introducing the roles of the social worker to the following disciplines: social work and the family, social work and school, social work and the elderly, and social work in the medical field.

Learners in the course are required to complete the following tasks:

• to chose a asked to select a particular case in any of the fields above,
• prepare an investigation about this case, (gather initial information and data concerning the establishment dealing with the case, the plan followed in dealing with the case (individually, through a group, or through societal organizing)
• visiting a social work establishment specialized in dealing the said case, and making a case study about a case of an individual, and about the role of the social worker in this particular case.

Short term intervention: 0403344

The course  designed to provide students with basic understanding of the nature of short term intervention vis a vis long term intervention, and the related professional terms such as time limited intervention, time sensitive intervention, brief intervention and therapy, single session therapy , etc.

The students will be able to differentiate between all terms as well as the course will focus on the main dimensions of short / brief interventions, the rationale and the pretexts of employing and practicing short term/ brief intervention, the background of generating this notion, and the course will discuss the core beliefs and components of short term / brief intervention, aims, stages, barriers, challenges and modalities.

The course will discuss the solution focused intervention as the most popular model, and the crisis intervention, James Mann model of short term intervention.

Institutions in Social Work:  0403411

The course aims to prepare and equip students in social work, at their final stage in the degree studies, with a mass of theoretical knowledge, with a particular focus on the nature and characteristics of the organization. The courses constructed and designed to provide an understanding of what organizations are, why they exist with special emphases on the organizational mission, and how they operate……with the completion of this course the students will gain significant understanding of all components of organization as structure, behavior, culture and life cycle, they will understand also the relations of these organizations with their environments ( the immediate and the external ) .

The course will focus on the organizations of human services, and the functions of the profession of social work, and the roles of social workers within these organizations future workplaces and shall have developed a critical view on organizations’ role in society. The first theme focuses on the nature of organizations and their functions and how the understanding thereof has developed. The second theme highlights managing and motivating people. The third theme combines a management and decision-making perspective with the existence and importance of change and learning. The fourth theme links the organization to the external environment, emphasizing the role of the organization in society and the responsibility of individuals and organizations to act in a sustainable and ethical way

Administration in Social Work: 0403412

Management is a dimension of organizational studies completing the other major two dimensions, the organizational theory and the organizational behavior, the students should complete first the course of institutions (ORGANIZATIONS)

This course introduces students to the major functions of management and managers, Planning, Directing, Organizing, Leading and Monitoring (controlling) and functions of managers. The content includes an introduction to management as a science, the developmental process of management as a position and a job to the management as leadership, manipulating between task and result oriented to people and relations oriented

The course will provide the students with essential knowledge to understand comprehensively the key themes of the participative management process in the human services organizations, includes, decision making, management styles, managerial skills, effectiveness, efficiency, synergy, visionary leadership and other essential concepts and topics.

Social planning  (0403458 )

This course is follows the course of community organizing, these courses are enhance the students’ understanding and well-professionally prepare them to handle the functions of social work in the processes of social change ,and be competent to fulfill their roles as change agents.

This course is bringing together social, economic, environmental, and cultural elements to pro- actively being well prepared to the community development and change.

Students in this course well gain the knowledge and the skills to understand that the participative social planning, significantly increase the chances of the community to better manage the stages of development and change (changing populations)

This course will equip the student with the knowledge and skills, to understand that this subject explores the theory and practice of social planning and community development as applied to local government

Social welfare in Palestine (0403439)

The course will be cover the most widespread pattern in modern time of Palestinian people which is the vulnerability and the risk of being victims according to Mendelsohn classification of the 5 types of victimhood –victims of crime ,  of one ‘self , environmental , societal, technological , the course will be reviewing and featuring the services network available in Palestine in this respect.

Prior to delineate the services we discuss and elaborate the term  victims and victimization of crimes in Palestine , the sources of the term, the relationship with various science disciplines ( such as social work, psychology , criminology , sociology), the  interest of studying victims and victimization, the risk of being victim both individual and familial risk factors, the main typology of victims according to Hans von Hentig, Stephen Schaefer, Ezzat Fattah, and Mendelsohn, then we will discuss the important subject of measuring the scope of victims and the cost of being victim of crime locally and internationally .

The later subject will be mainly in highlighting the historically modalities of responding and handling with victimization (retribution and restitution) since the ancient times (Hammurabi era, the Moses law, the Roman law). We will provide the chance of studying restitution (monetary restitution and services restitution, the compensation, insurance, and civil litigation).

The final subject will focus on the three main familiar dimensions of handling victimization locally and internationally:  the primary punitive approach, the primary protective approach, and primary therapeutic approach.

The final part will be to materialize the three dimension from reality experience examples of responding to sexually assaulted, abused and neglected children in Palestine.

Social characteristics of Palestine within the Arab world (0403253 )

 The course aims to introduce the Palestinian society and its emergence to the audience, to understand the reality of the social and historical conditions that the Palestinian society has lived through since the Ottoman empire until the present time, by identifying the nature of the Palestinian society considering it  the source of social, economic, cultural and political trends and that it is an integral part of the Arab society through:

1. identifying the nature of the historical development of Palestinian society
2. Explaining the nature of the social, economic and political currents of Palestinian society and the extent to which they are affected by the ongoing conflict between population groups under the conditions of occupation
3. That the student learns the nature of the social and economic effects that the Palestinian people are exposed to as a result of the economic dependence imposed on them by the occupation

Generalist practice : (0403442 )

This course will discuss the nature of the generalist practice, as well as the main dimensions, characteristics, the purposes of generalist practice, and the rationales.

The course will overview and address several aspects relevant to generalist practice such as the utilizing of multi-levels of interventions, the diversity of problem addressed by social worker, the multi roles and function  employed by social  work in the field.

This course will examine the application of this model on the ground, to what extent the social worker adopt this notion in their practice, alongside discussing the challenges, the barriers of generalist practice in Palestine.

Also the course will address important topic related to the application of generalist practice such as social justice, case and cause advocacy, critical thinking, and empowerment.

Social problem: (0403456 )

The course will primarily engaged in understanding and defining and measuring the social problems, and also overview the different views and of criteria and conditions of considering a phenomena as a social problem, with this regard we will delineate the cost and impact of social problem.

We will emphasize and overview how sociologists have approached the study of social problems including highlighting theoretical perspectives (symbolic interactionist, conflict, structural-functionalist and constructionist perspectives).

We will also introduce to the students the main social problems in Palestine, as well as presenting the comparative approach of examining the main social problems around the world and we will try to understand the assertions and premises of looking at social problem according to John Macionisi.

The course will provide the student with the tools and ideas necessary to cope and challenge the soaring of social problems around.

Treating and rehabilitating people with special needs: (0403236 )

The course is designed to provide the students the opportunity to learn about the nature of the terms rehabilitation and special needs, moreover the students will learn to distinct and differentiate the multi facet of special needs, and to concentrate on the physical and mental disability typology.

The course structure provides the students a comprehensive understanding of the variety of needs of people with both mental and physical disability, as well as to learn about the major challenges and problems they face in their daily life.

 The growing number of people with disability has create a multi-dimensional and diverse services and mobilizing many features of response to people with special needs.

All along the course we will examine the roles and functions performed by social worker in his contact with these people, thereby we will concentrate on the various models of handling people with disability, so we consider providing the students with relevant guidelines of work with people with special needs and also to discuss the main practical paradigms such as normalization, integration, and segregation.

The final part of the course is to examine the situation in Palestine, and to try to learn about the scope of the problem and examine the typical response modalities and to what extent these responses are sufficient and effective in dealing with the mounting numbers of people with special needs

Social change : (0403457 )

The course will address the nature of the term social change by reviewing different aspect of social change, also the course will try to explore the motives for change, reasons, and what elements contribute or enhance the likelihood of change, and discussing major dimensions of social change..

Alongside studying the pretexts for change we will try to concentrate on the challenges, barriers and limitations for change, by presenting and articulating the forces that hinder, delay obstruct the likelihood of bringing change.

 Also the course will illuminate the relevant theories on social change, and will highlight the typology of changes, examples will be drawn from areas of practice in which social worker are involved.

Later we will review the process of change and what is the consideration and measures that are vital and might contribute to the successful end.

Social Macro practice/ community work (0403344 )

The course will focus on the third pillar of practical social work paradigm alongside social case work and group work, therefore, we will clarify initially the definitions of the relevant term namely “community “, measuring community according to warren and warren, the importance and contribution of community, the main functions of community according to Weil approach ( production, distribution, and consumption, socialization, social control, mutual social support, social participation).

Then we will emphasize on the nature of the concept social problem, and why it’s crucial in macro practice therefore we will present different definitions and measurements of social problem as the turf of social macro practitioner, and the examining the term moral panic.

Then we will discuss and elaborate more on the definitions of the terms social macro practice,

And the main 3 models of intervention according to Rothman (locality development, social planning, and social action). We will provide the students with main ideas of each model and the main role of the macro practitioners according to each model, and finally discussing the rationale and pretexts of adopting each model

Graduation Project  (0403423 )

This is a course given in the final year of the study degree, it is a research seminar that allows for a semester to practice the student’s abilities in scientific thinking and in building scientific research in the field of social work, and in major social issues in this professional field.

The course is conducted after the student has studied and successfully completed the courses: Introduction to Statistics, Research Methods and Research Methodology, and at the end of the research methodology course the student should  complete a research proposal and accepted as a final thesis of the course .

In the graduation  seminar course , the students work in groups of 3 to 4 students, who have one semester time to select and to conduct   an empirical research exercise , the course teacher provides close supervision to these research groups .