This course is designed to deepen knowledge and skills required to work with children and adolescents with mental health problems in a variety of settings in Hong Kong, particularly with respect to the areas of behavioural and emotional problems and substance abuse.

Prerequisite: SOWK 7420 Theories in Counselling and Therapy or consent of the Department.
This course focuses on introducing to the students the diverse and yet inter-related narrative approaches to working with young people and their families at different settings, as well as the basic philosophy, concepts, and therapeutic conversations.

This course focuses on introducing to the students the diverse and yet inter-related narrative approaches to working with young people and their families at different settings, as well as the basic philosophy, concepts, and therapeutic conversations.

This course approaches to enhancing collaborative work with young people will be covered. In particular, the students will be introduced to strategies and interventions from the approaches of structural family therapy and solution-focused brief therapy as well as their application to specific youth groups with a diversity of developmental issues and needs.

Prerequisite: Year III Social Work students or consent of the Department
The basic objectives of this course are to review contemporary theories and perspectives for understanding youth with particular reference to the socio-economic and political context of Hong Kong, critically examine the discourses on specific dimensions of youth in Hong Kong, and examine and evaluate selected youth services and approaches to youth work with a review to promoting positive changes.

This course covers the basic concepts, approaches and methods in social sciences using linear modeling methods. The course is comprised of seminar and lab sessions. Each class will start with a seminar with the instructor to discuss related concepts and students will be required to participate in discussion. Then, the class will move into the lab session when students are either required to present their own research ideas or practice statistical skills using the software SPSS. Students will have to complete weekly lab assignments. Final paper involves the generation of a publishable manuscript based on students’ research area of interests. In the first part of the course, student will learn how to construct their own conceptual model and specify hypotheses based on existing theories and literatures. In the second part of the course, students will identify a secondary data set related to their conceptual models and learn about data management skills. In the third part, students will learn about the concepts and lab skills of bivariate analysis. The fourth part of the course covers introductory concepts and lab skills of multiple regression. Last, students will have the opportunity to learn about manuscript writing and consult the instructors regarding their paper.

The dissertation provides opportunity for students to develop and complete a research project of either literature or empirical based relevant to their own specialism.  Students may focus on a specific area such as a selected service target, application of a practice theory, exploration of a topic or issue, management practice or service policy.  The dissertation topic is treated with rigour and depth, appropriate to work at postgraduate level.