Expanding Dedicated Instruction in Intellectual Disabilities in Graduate Social Work Programs

Overview: Providing services to persons with Intellectual Disabilities is a growing concern for social workers, and training programs fail to address this need. This presentation reviews current training in the U.S., examines employment opportunities for social workers in the field, and provides a sample curriculum for dedicated instruction.Proposal text: Social work schools in the U.S. are the primary training institutions for students committed to servicing society’s most vulnerable populations, including persons with intellectual disabilities (ID). Recognizing the need to better advocate for persons with ID, Quinn (1995) surveyed 93 schools of social work, examining disability content in their programs. Only 27% of programs had classwork dedicated to instruction in disabilities. Similarly, Laws et al. (2013) conducted a comprehensive internet-based study to identify ID courses in 50 top-ranked graduate schools of social work accredited by the CSWE. Approximately 36% of schools offered at least one course dedicated to the broad study of disability. There are three ways in which schools of social work can offer disability content to their students: infused (included in broader classwork), dedicated (specialization), or both (Gourdine & Sanders, 2003). Dedicated classwork in ID offer students the best means of deepening their knowledge and expertise in this area.
Social workers play a ubiquitous role in the lives of the disabled and their caregivers. Caring for the disabled is a costly undertaking: approximately 3 percent of the U.S. population has some form of developmental disability or nearly 10 million individuals. This number is growing due to better case findings in young infants. Thus, funds are available to support the careers of many social workers interested in working in the disability field. The annual budget of New York State’s disability office (OPWDD) exceeds $5 billion. The question is whether social work schools are making sufficient effort to train this workforce.
Many diverse career paths exist for social workers trained in this area. These include: mental health counseling; social service agency staffing; medical and healthcare agency positions; parent/caregiver support; clinical evaluation in schools; policy and research at state and federal agencies; work in aging and advocacy; and residential and housing support. A thorough training would aid these careers in the field before assuming the position. It follows that classwork dedicated to the needs of the disability community would be essential (Russo-Gleicher, 2008).
A complete syllabus has been developed for a dedicated course in disability studies - we have termed this “ID-101.” Course content explores the impact of the historical, environmental, and societal factors that influence how social workers interact with ID individuals across the lifespan. The course is offered as a launching point for developing dedicated instruction for social workers in the field of ID.
ID-101 is designed as a 15-week, single semester class, covering nearly all aspects of an ID person’s life from ages 0-21. Course objectives will include: developmental stages; review of case studies; different theoretical frameworks; exploring feelings and biases; class presentation; and exposure to outside experts, parents, and other interested parties in the ID community.
It is proposed that only by encountering the full complexity of the intellectual disability experience, in an entire semester class dedicated to this field of study, will a social work student gather the required knowledge and perspective to guide their choices as to whether they wish to specialize in this field.