Online Graduate Certificate in Practices in Trauma Recovery Curriculum
Become an Expert in Trauma Recovery
Gain the advanced knowledge and skills you need to make a career out of helping people recover from trauma. Our online graduate certificate's four major courses build on the principles of social work with a unique perspective on trauma recovery.
These courses are taught entirely online, so you can study from wherever you are. Topics covered include behavior and the social environment, treating trauma, clinical social work, and more. In required trauma workshops and supervised seminars, you will dive into treatment practices and reflect on your clinical experience.
Prepare for a fulfilling career in 12–18 months of study.
Strategic Communication Courses
In this certificate program, you will complete the following courses:
This course builds on conceptual frameworks of human development, emphasizing the biological, psychological, and environmental influences on social and emotional disturbances. The course will consider diagnosis and assessment within culture and life cycle changes. The student will acquire a working knowledge of the DSM-5 and its uses in identifying and classifying mental disorders. Students will also be encouraged to view these disorders within the context of the individual's culture and environment. This course provides students with the Core Competencies and Related Behaviors for conducting an assessment of human psychosocial functioning to inform culturally and socially sensitive social work interventions. |
This advanced standing bridge course is designed to provide advanced standing students with the knowledge base and skills needed for the advanced clinical curriculum courses: SW 630 Clinical Social Work Practice with Individuals, SW 633 Clinical Social Work Practice with Families, and SW 637 Field Instruction III & Seminar. It builds on the generalist social work practice perspective and focuses on the theoretical basis and skills needed to work effectively with individuals and families. Students explore the beginning, middle, and ending stages of practice and the skills required for creative and effective use of self with individuals and families. Attention is given to ethnicity, race, gender, and sexual orientation. Students also develop knowledge of theory, including ecological systems, individual and family life cycle, ego psychology, learning, and cognitive theories. Students are introduced to evidence-based practice and qualitative and quantitative research methods and begin to analyze research to inform practice. Class discussions, experiential exercises, role plays, audio/video recordings, assigned readings, and written assignments are directed at integrating the theoretical generalist foundation and developing a range of skills. |
This course concentrates on the etiology and treatment of traumatic symptomatology. Students explore conditions that contribute to the development of acute stress disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder, dissociative disorders, and other disorders of extreme stress. Comorbid conditions, including substance abuse and self-harming behaviors, are considered. The intergenerational, socio-cultural, and societal impact of trauma is explored. A strengths-based approach is emphasized. Readings orient students to the assessment of trauma symptoms, as well as to generally applicable treatment approaches and research on the psychobiology of trauma. |
Focusing on social work practice with families, this course expands systemic thinking by introducing multiple models for family work, including Psychodynamic, Bowen, Narrative, Communication, Contextual, Structural, and Solution-Focused, as well as newer models of family work such as Multidimensional Family Therapy. Using these models and their related theories, students will gain a solid foundation for assessment and intervention with families, knowledge of the family life cycle, and the impact of wider systems on a family’s structure and functioning. The definition of family will be inclusive of many different family forms. Students will examine how cultural issues such as class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation must be considered while assessing a family’s presenting issues, unique strengths, and vulnerabilities. Students will learn to think critically about the relevance of particular concepts and interventions for each family system, including whether certain “Western” concepts apply to all families. |