social work practice with api populations

This course explores micro, mezzo, and macro social work practice with Asian Pacific Islander (API) clients. It starts with a historical discussion of API discrimination and their struggle for civial rights in the United States. Historical events, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Japanese Internment, will be connected to our current experience and reality as an ethnic community. This course will also explore how API Civil Rights Movement is connected to and aided by other BIPOC-led Civil Rights movements. Contextualized in a historical and social justice perspective, this course will explore emerging evidence-supported principles, frameworks, and clinical skills when providing psychosocial and mental health services to clients of API descendant. Students will have opportunities to critically reflect on the role of research, identity, racism, and social oppression in relation to social work practice with API clients. A brief introduction to research supported assessment and intervention methods with API clients will be presented at the end.