University of Oklahoma Teaching Modules

Modules on Health and Mental Health and Substance Abuse

This site addresses the needs of American Indian elders since much data indicate that this group faces numerous social challenges including health disparities, mental health issues, and poverty. The site is composed of five modules. Each module incorporates a range of resources including other websites, bibliography, PowerPoint slide supporting lectures, video content incorporating practice content and first-person accounts from professionals serving Native American elders and family members, and assignments supporting the inclusion of diversity in the advanced year of the graduate social work curriculum. Each module has its own scope, focus, and content, and faculty members can use a particular module as part of a given course or as the basis for a specific learning experience.

The five teaching modules are:

1. The Native American (NA) Elder—Cultural Social Work in Native Traditions
2. Informal Sources of Mental Health and Health Care—The Native American Kinship Network
3. Working With the Impaired Elder in Family and Tribal Contexts
4. Adapting Models of Practice and Tools to Native American Experience
5. Working on Behalf of Native American Elders in Interdisciplinary Contexts

The site is designed as a curriculum resource system for social work faculty members and focuses on the following objectives:

1. Helping faculty members access curriculum materials that help them communicate the cultural experience in Native American traditions.
2. Helping faculty members organize learning experiences useful to students in social work practice with Native American elders.
3. Helping faculty members increase students’ understanding of social work in interdisciplinary perspectives.
4. Helping faculty members facilitate student understanding of the Native American experience and identify practice implications of this experience for social work as a helping and health care profession.