Social Service Worker

In this training video, Judith Smith presents an engaging and comprehensive look at the field of social work through the eyes of several new social work students. The students share their reasons for entering the field, their first experiences with clients, and their reactions to the sometimes overwhelming responsibilities of the social work profession. Key lessons of the social work master's program are covered, including managing caseloads, running groups, and working toward termination with clients. By watching this video, you will learn some of the foundations of social work training, including managing clients, establishing boundaries, and handling termination; understand the importance of supervision for social work students, and the ways to maximize this learning experience to its fullest potential; and understand the relationship between a social worker's personal thoughts and experiences and the effect they have on his/her work with clients.

For women, the experience of trauma often leads to disorders such as addictions, eating disorders, and self-harm. Stephanie Covington explores the interrelationship between substance abuse, trauma, and mental health. Draws on multiple therapeutic techniques to help women explore the impact of trauma on their lives and develop a sense of safety.

Educates clients, families, and clinicians on the history, challenges, and most effective treatments for co-occurring disorders. It offers compelling interviews with clinicians, physicians, and researchers, along with inspiring client testimonials.

Follows two members of a Mobile Crisis Intervention Team, a mental health nurse and a police officer on their rounds in downtown Toronto. The team attempts to de-escalate mental health crises and avoid arrests and hospital visits by responding to 911 calls involving emotionally disturbed persons.

When a mental health challenge touches a family, each family member can be impacted. "The Journey Home" is designed to give family members real life guidance, insight and hope from families who have made the journey before you. Families and family support practitioners, attended family organization programs and brought it all together to create "family to family" video resources that can give you the experiences of families directly, in their own words.

Ashley Smith was a troubled 19-year-old when she choked herself to death at Ontario's Grand Valley Institution for Women. Her death made national headlines and led to a scathing report by Canada's federal prison ombudsman. Incarceration for Ashley began at a youth detention centre in New Brunswick. Her crime: she had tossed crabapples at a mailman. Her one-month sentence stretched to almost four years, served in five provinces. To tell her story, the Fifth estate fought for and gained access to shocking prison video, showing Ashley being subdued by force, pepper sprayed, and cocooned in a completely restrictive body bag. The longer she was treated this way, the worse her behaviour became. She needed mental health care but never got it. With the prison videotapes and exclusive access to Smith's parents, along with a fellow inmate, the Fifth estate exposes a system that fails the many Ashley Smiths still incarcerated in Canadian institutions.

Insite is the only one of its kind in North America - a supervised injection site for drug addicts. Located in Vancouver's notorious downtown eastside, the facility has been controversial since it opened its doors in 2003. Funded by British Columbia's government and championed by community leaders, the centre has a powerful critic: Stephen Harper's government is openly hostile to it and is trying to shut it down. Now for the first time, cameras have been allowed to record the daily dramas at Insite. This 'fifth estate' documentary introduces those who work there and the addicts doing their best to survive despite the many issues that confront them: poverty, homelessness and a history of abuse, to name just a few. In this CBC exclusive, for the first time, see inside Insite and make up your own mind.

What is the relationship between addiction and homelessness? Where does personal responsibility fit into the equation? Should street addicts be left to their own devices, or do full-service shelters, legalized heroin dispensaries, and other provisions make for smart urban policy? In search of answers, Misha Klieder has put away his sociology textbooks and opted for real-life experience-spending close to a month sleeping and scavenging in the crime-infested Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, Canada. Beginning as a semi-farcical challenge to standard liberal views of homelessness, Misha's story takes on darker dimensions as he encounters severe health problems and, in an even more ominous turn, becomes a crack and heroin consumer. A startling journey inside urban North America's most intractable social problem.

"In this training video, a group of social workers describe how social justice informs every aspect of social work. Through interviews with real social workers, you'll learn how values become action in their day-to-day lives. You'll see how social workers often engage directly in political and legal action by lobbying for laws that address the needs of underserved and marginalized populations. You'll also see how enthusiasm for their work shines through in the discussions of their cases, their treatment populations and their ever-increasing respect for the position of their clients. By watching this video, you will learn how professional social workers advocate for social justice on a micro and macro level; understand the ways social work interventions can allow clients to access hope and their best selves; and discover the philosophical foundation workers use to help them see the client as "a whole person."