Closed event.
Through a collaboration with the University of Puerto Rico, the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico, and the Universidad Central del Caribe, this 10-days cultural immersion study program will provide students with an overview of social work practice, trauma informed approaches, and community collective models to promote mental health, resilience, and well-being in Puerto Rico with implications for service provision to Latinos/Latine in the continental United States. Course participants will engage in analysis of social, economic, political, and cultural aspects that influence the Puerto Rican population. The focus will be on social work public health approaches to assessment, program development, evaluation and evidence-based practices, particularly community-based participatory research.
The course will also emphasize social justice, equity and inclusion and examine implications for culturally responsive social work practice. Participants will attend classes, lectures, and field visits to community projects and social service agencies, including public health, homeless substance use prevention/ treatment health care programs, Afro-Caribbean historical sites, Dominican immigrant groups, and various University partnerships.
Course participants will contrast strategies, theories, and best clinical & community social work practice, working with interdisciplinary teams in Puerto Rico and those developed for use with Latinos/Latine residing in the continental United States. Students will meet and interact with local agencies staff and program participants, professors and collaborators from the University of Puerto Rico, the InterAmerican University Metro campus, and the Universidad del Caribe in Bayamón.