Course Objectives

The aim of main course IV is to help students expand their knowledge, and gain a deeper ideological, professional and ethical understanding of the foundation and positions within practice-oriented professions. Students will develop a greater awareness of the foundation of practice-oriented professions, and the range of actions and potential for change inherent in them. Main course IV provides the students with an opportunity to develop their understanding and skills during their internship placements which they may consider particularly challenging and interesting. The main course will provide students with a foundation for enhancing their abilities in reflection, argumentation and reorientation in the exercise of professional health and social work. The intention is to make the professional’s working role into an object of continual assessment with respect to traditional interpretations, and contribute to professional practices encouraging increased solidarity, an unflagging dedication to people in distress and the protection of human worth and human rights in a globalised world.

Course Description

COURSE UNIT 9: ASSESSMENT OF THE LEGAL RIGHTS AND LIFE SITUATION OF THE PHYSICALLY DISABLED

The aim of course unit 9 is to provide students with the opportunity to study legal topics in depth, especially in relation to the legal rights of the physically disabled in a welfare state. The course unit will contribute to providing students with a deeper understanding of functional disability as a social and cultural phenomenon, and of the functionally disabled’s own contribution to identity and cultural understanding and various forms of separate organisation.

The content of the course unit includes administrative procedures and caseworker’s positions in public administration, relevant contributions to organisation and leadership theory with special emphasis on the development of the public sector and the topic of culture, identity and functional disability. The topic of administrative procedures takes as its starting point chapter 4 of the Norwegian Social Services Act and the Act’s objects clauses. The introduction to organisation and leadership theory will focus on the role of team members in organisations. The topics culture, identity and physical disability will provide students with knowledge of and insight into cultural aspects of physical disability. The course unit will discuss the functionally disabled’s self-perception and the various explanations of functional disability in relation to how this remains stable and changes through social relations. Further, an examination of the opportunities and barriers the functionally disabled meet, and which conditions give functionally disability relevance.

Teaching and learning methods: The course unit employs self-study, lectures, discussion groups and presentations in class. Students will be given the opportunity to practice writing a case report and the possibility of individual response by the subject teacher.

Assessment: Course unit 9 requires one assignment in the assessment portfolio:

Course unit code: 060HEMN4 9-1

Assessment assignment 9-1: Case presentation

The assessment assignment is a complete case presentation (document in administration). The case presentation will deal with social services available to the functionally disabled according to the Norwegian Social Services Act, and the assignment must satisfy the minimum requirements regarding case procedure in public administration.

Individual assignment. (1000 words). Letter grade which counts for 30 % of the course grade for Main Course IV.

Minor adjustments may occur during the academic year, subject to the decision of the Dean