Should I Take the Single System Design (SSD) Course (SocW 565) as My Concentration-year Research Course ?

Students considering taking SSD as their second-year research course should consider whether this course is a good fit with their field placement. SSD requires that students have the ability to plan and carry out a single-system design project with a client or client system in their field setting. A SSD evaluation can, in principle, be conducted with an individual, couple, family, group, institution, or even a larger system. The client or client system must consent to the student evaluating their practice, as well as to the student presenting this evaluation in class. Evaluation of practice requires that measurements of goals (either strengths or problems) be made a minimum of two times prior to the intervention and two times during or after the intervention.

For the most part, students have found this course very interesting, useful, and manageable. Students who have had problems in the past have been in field settings where: (1) they do not see clients or consumers on a regular basis (e.g. they only do assessments); or, (2) they cannot follow clients or consumers over time (e.g. they see them in an outreach or drop-in capacity); or, (3) they work in a community-based program or a policy setting with no identified clients or service consumers; or, (4) they are discouraged from measurements or using material from the agency in classroom assignments (e.g. while the client will consent to using material in the classroom, the agency will not).

Students who want to take SSD but are not sure whether they should or could, given their placement, should talk to their field instructor and to the instructor, Larry Bennett. Dr. Bennett can be reached at lwbenn@uic.edu, (312)996-4577, or by stopping by his office in room EPASW 4440 on Tuesday or Thursday. Students may also want to look at the course syllabus, which is available at http://tigger.uic.edu/~lwbenn/jacswcourses/SocW565/