ad
Apply Now Request Information
Back To Top

Diploma Program

Social Services Worker - Foundations

Diploma

33 weeks

Qualified Instructors

This program can be offered at the campus(es) below. Please contact the campus of your choosing for program availability and delivery methods.

Location Icon

View Campus Availability

Dropdown Arrow
Delivery Icon

View Delivery Methods

Dropdown Arrow
Combined

Combined

Median Wage

$25 /hour

*Jobbank.gc.ca; 2024;

Master the Skills to Qualify for Social Services Worker Jobs

This foundational program prepares graduates for positions in community social services, focusing on youth, mental health, Indigenous peoples, poverty reduction, and addiction.

 

Graduates can specialize in areas such as recovery and youth,  helping families in crisis, working with trauma victims, and more.

  • PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATIONS / SOCIAL SERVICES
  • PSYCHOLOGY
  • DIVERSITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
  • FUNDAMENTALS OF POVERTY / ADDICTION / MENTAL HEALTH
  • CLINICAL PRACTICUM
  • CASE FILE MANAGEMENT
  • REPORT WRITING
  • SELF-CARE
  • COMMUNITY RESOURCES AND NETWORKING
Credential Image Credential Image

Approved & Designated 

This program is approved by the Private Training Institutions Branch (PTIB) of British Columbia. CDI College is designated by the Education Quality Assurance (EQA).

Program Intro Background

Program Courses

Student Success Strategies

Plus Icon Minus Icon

The purpose of this course is to provide students with the knowledge, skills and study techniques to help foster effective learning and a positive educational experience. This course explores two components of learning styles, Multiple Intelligence-based theory and Personality Spectrum – MBTI-based theory, and how learning styles and personality types affect learning. The course will cover the importance of values, their relationship to goals and goal setting. Strategies for setting personal goals, prioritizing tasks, managing time, and the stress that results from study or work situations will be explored and practiced through active participation in learner-centred activities. Effective study habits, techniques for preparing for tests and productive note taking strategies are key topics of this course that will provide the students with the necessary skills and attitudes to be successful in school. Having a sound understanding of financial, money, credit and debt matters and their implication on our lives is critical knowledge to have. Students taking this course will benefit from completing the Financial Management Workshops, which provides comprehensive coverage of financial and money management skills that will allow them to better save, budget, and manage their money and financial situations.

Introduction to Computers

Plus Icon Minus Icon

This course introduces the students to the basic elements of using a computer with an emphasis on the functionality of an operating system and tasks related to file management and word processing. Relying very heavily on a hands-on practical training approach, students learn by doing through skills based
simulations, training and assessments. The course provides an overview of Microsoft 365 where you will learn about the common features of the applications and file management fundamentals. The course then focuses on the core features of Microsoft Word where students learn proper document formatting, organization and editing using the tools and features of the ribbon. The course will then continue with more advanced topics such as working with tables, lists, objects, templates footnotes and endnotes and mail merges.

Introduction to Social Service Work

Plus Icon Minus Icon

This course is designed to give the student an introduction to social service work in Canada. Social service workers and allied professionals play a pivotal role in improving the social welfare of individual people and whole communities. These helping professionals do so from a variety of contexts, but from a coherent “strengths-based’ values platform. Students will learn what social services workers do, how they do it, why they do it, and what good it does.

Professional Communications for Social Services

Plus Icon Minus Icon

This course helps the student understand the basic elements of adult interpersonal communication. All professional communication skills (such as counselling skills, interviewing skills, and so on) are supported by a foundation of adult interpersonal communication. Focusing on the four main areas of communication -- verbal, nonverbal, interpersonal, and group -- the course gives the student opportunities to intensively practice basic communication skills via role-playing, feedback, and other practical exercises.

Diversity and Social Justice in Helping Relationships

Plus Icon Minus Icon

This course presents diversity from a much broader perspective than just race and ethnicity, exploring a broad spectrum of cultural and diversity issues and their impact on the client-counsellor relationship. Students will have the opportunity to learn from external speakers with expertise in specific communities as well as an opportunity to hone their clinical skills via role-playing.

Professional Ethics

Plus Icon Minus Icon

This subject is designed to provide the student with a framework in which to view helping functions and related skills in a systematic manner. The subject concentrates on the helper’s task of becoming a more aware and effective person. The emphasis is on empowering others to help themselves through the development of communication and coping skills.

  • Reasons for students seeking a career in the helping profession
  • Practical strategies for ensuring quality experiences in fieldwork and supervision stages of the helping process
  • Common problems at work in regards to resistance, transference, counter -transference and difficult clients
  • Ethical awareness and learning for helpers
  • Value and belief systems of helpers
  • One’s role in the community as a helper
  • Stress and burnout

Psychology

Plus Icon Minus Icon

This course is designed to give students an overview of several fundamental concepts in psychology. The purpose is to give students the knowledge and understanding of psychological concepts that can be applied to their chosen field of study. This course provides an introduction to the principals of psychology including human development, motivation, social psychology related topics relevant to community service work.

Fundamentals of Poverty

Plus Icon Minus Icon

The course explores the impact poverty has on the individuals who must cope with it as well as the impact on the community as a whole. Particular emphasis is placed on child poverty in Canada as well as de-bunking myths and stereotypes about poverty. Two special topics in poverty are also covered: poverty and homelessness and poverty, and Aboriginals and the impact of the Legacy. The importance of education and occupation is also covered. As one of their module deliverables, students construct personal resource binders of local agencies and organizations that support people coping with poverty. They will be able to refer to these for future projects and while on practicum.

Fundamentals of Addiction

Plus Icon Minus Icon

This course is designed to provide students with basic information regarding common drugs and processes of abuse. Furthermore, it's designed to give students some hands-on tools for analyzing addiction as a complex bio-psychosocial model. Included in this course is the etiology of addiction, maintenance and relapse prevention, cross cultural counseling, gender-specific addictions, the psychological models used in addiction, and working on a multidisciplinary addictions treatment team.

Fundamentals of Mental Health

Plus Icon Minus Icon

This course explores basic questions regarding mental health. It explains the formal diagnostic categories of the DSM-IV-TR, common medications used in pharmacotherapies for mental health concerns, as well as the impact mental health concerns have on the affected individuals. Particular emphasis is placed on community-based interventions and supports for people living with mental health issues as well as the importance of the duty to warn. As one of their module deliverables, students construct personal resource binders of local agencies and organizations that support people coping with mental health. They will be able to refer to these resources for future projects and while on practicum.

Working with Families

Plus Icon Minus Icon

This course provides students with an introduction to issues frequently encountered when working with families affected by addiction. Drawing on Bowen and Solution-Focussed family therapies, it provides tools that help social service workers understand various family dynamics. Basic strategies for interviewing families are reviewed. The concept of codependency is introduced, both in terms of the family life of clients, and the workers’ own risk for developing codependent behaviours on the job. A basic introduction to working with diverse family groups is provided.

Case File Management and Report Writing

Plus Icon Minus Icon

This course is designed to give the student an introduction to case management, documentation, and report writing in the social work field. It covers the effects of deinstitutionalization and the importance of the case manager role. Types of recording in this course include process recording and summary recording along with intake summaries. The process behind intake interviews, service delivery planning, building case files, and service coordination are also covered. The course also examines ethical and legal issues giving students an idea of the various areas where competence improves with experience. Various roles in case management such as assessment, intake procedures, outreach, and resources are also covered.

Burnout and Self-Care

Plus Icon Minus Icon

Helping professionals who work with traumatized or otherwise "at-risk" individuals are at risk themselves for developing secondary traumatic stress. The very qualities that led workers to the social service employment -- compassion and empathy -- are the ones that make workers particularly vulnerable to this. Murphy’s Law and the different types of stress are also brought to the forefront. This course briefly reviews the nature and diagnostic criteria of both post-traumatic stress and secondary post-traumatic stress. The primary focus in this module is practical, hands-on strategies that social service workers can use to prevent burnout and increase self-care.

Community Resources and Networking

Plus Icon Minus Icon

This course is designed to give students some hands-on experience with networking and with assessing and improving their job readiness skills. It is also intended to educate students about the local community agencies and organization (who they serve, what they do, how clients access the services, etc.). This course is not designed to empower students for career readiness. In other words, instructors should not be developing opportunities for students; rather, instructors should be coaching, training, and motivating students to learn how to develop opportunities on their own.

Note that students are expected to focus their search in the area of the social services they intend to specialize, such as youth, addictions, aboriginals, etc.

Professional Development

Plus Icon Minus Icon

During this module, students earn their certification in First Aid/CPR, ASIST suicide prevention training, and Non-Violent Crisis Intervention (NVCI). Students also learn WHMIS, FoodSafe ®, and Medication Administration for Support Workers.

Suicide Intervention Skills Training (6-8 hours)
This 3rd party training will cover the skills needed to allow
one to recognize and intervene with persons in distress.


Medication Administration for Support Workers (8-10 hours)
This session, part of SSW114O – Professional Development, is a two-day session to understand who and how a community support worker can assist with medications in the field. Topics include:

  • A review of mental health concerns and common psychiatric medications
  • Mental disorders
  • Discontinuing psychiatric medications
  • Online tutorials (Centre of Addiction and Mental Health)
  • Use of medications in residential settings

FoodSafe™ - Level 1 (8 -10 hours)
FOODSAFE Level 1 is a food handling, sanitation, and work safety course designed for front line food service workers. The course covers important food safety and
worker safety information including foodborne illness, receiving and storing food, preparing food, serving food, cleaning, and sanitizing. The course is normally delivered (as part of SSW114O – Professional Development) as an eight-hour face-to-face class by an external provider who provides a workbook and other materials required for this certification training.

Non-Violent Crisis Intervention (8- 10 hours) This course (part of SSW114O – Professional Development) is designed to help participants learn to recognize warning signs that allow for early intervention in a crisis as well as how to use both verbal and non-verbal techniques to avoid a violent confrontation. The use of nonviolent crisis intervention allows for recognizing individuals in distress early on and using appropriate techniques to address the situation before it becomes a crisis.

Standard First Aid & CPR (16-18 hours)
As part of the SSW114O – Professional Development course, external providers teach first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) skills. It includes the
latest first aid and CPR guidelines, and it meets federal and provincial regulations for Standard First Aid and CPR. WHMIS Education for Employees (4-6 hours) This course, part of SSW114O – Professional Development, provides specific health and safety information about workplace hazardous materials called controlled products through learning the WHMIS 2015 standards. This enables workers to understand how WHMIS information can help them to work safely with and near hazardous materials. This one-day session provides this essential information and is reinforced with an online training session and certification examination.

Career & Employment Strategies

Plus Icon Minus Icon

In addition to learning career-oriented skills, students learn how to get a job in their chosen profession. Our Employment Services department will assist the graduate in resume writing, as well as preparing for job interviews. Our staff is sensitive to current job market trends and the needs of employers in each local market.
Our graduates receive guidance and training to use career tools that help job seekers build a better resume and cover letter, manage an online portfolio, hone interviewing skills, and develop a personal brand online.
Students will have the use of a computer lab which has unlimited Internet access, as well as job search resources. Facilitators will also be made available to advise on job finding resources, interview skills and techniques and to carry out mock interviews.

This course also looks at the planning, preparation, execution, and follow-up stages of an interview:

  • How people find jobs
  • Employer expectations
  • Presenting an enthusiastic attitude
  • Focusing on the right job and the hidden job market
  • Transferrable skills
  • Thank you letters
  • Effective telemarketing
  • Handling objections, self-confidence, and self-esteem
  • Individual counselling and coaching

SSW Foundations Practicum

Plus Icon Minus Icon

This practicum will place students in actual workplaces related to their field of study where they are expected to act as a regular employee for the set time periods in order to gain the valuable “real world” experience, often sought by employers who are hiring. Students are encouraged to find their own work experience; however, once placed, continuation in the placement is a mandatory diploma requirement. This practicum is an unpaid work experience. Students and practicum hosts are provided with a practicum “package” that outlines the expectations of both the student and the host that need to be met to have a successful outcome.

Stay up-to-date with the industry’s latest leading software and tools

Admission

Benefits of this program

Employment Opportunities

  • Standard Admissions:
    • High school graduation or equivalent

 

  • Mature Admissions:
    • Pass CDI College admissions test

 

  • Administrative Requirements for Admissions:
    • Complete Student Declaration – Social Services Worker Programs’ form
  • Get hands-on training
  • Study under experienced instructors
  • Get industry certifications
  • Develop and implement prevention strategies
  • Work through real-life scenarios during a practicum placement
  • Receive assistance in locating jobs and creating resumes from our Career Services department
  • Family Social Service Agencies
  • Group Homes
  • Correctional Facilities
  • Community Mental Health Facilities
  • School Programs
  • Aboriginal Agencies
  • Standard Admissions:
    • High school graduation or equivalent

 

  • Mature Admissions:
    • Pass CDI College admissions test

 

  • Administrative Requirements for Admissions:
    • Complete Student Declaration – Social Services Worker Programs’ form
  • Get hands-on training
  • Study under experienced instructors
  • Get industry certifications
  • Develop and implement prevention strategies
  • Work through real-life scenarios during a practicum placement
  • Receive assistance in locating jobs and creating resumes from our Career Services department
  • Family Social Service Agencies
  • Group Homes
  • Correctional Facilities
  • Community Mental Health Facilities
  • School Programs
  • Aboriginal Agencies
Video Thumbnail

Experience the CDI College Difference

Play IconPlay Video

Industry Certifications

Gain a distinct advantage by earning industry-recognized certifications that validate your expertise and skills in key areas such as digital marketing, project management, and CRM. Our program prepares you to succeed, whether you're advancing, switching careers, or starting your own business. Invest in yourself and join a community of certified professionals shaping the digital economy.

Hubspot Logo

Industry Leading Employers

Our extensive network and reputation for excellence ensure that graduates are in high demand in today's competitive job market. Prepare to excel in sought-after roles with renowned companies and unlock limitless career opportunities. Elevate your career trajectory and secure your future with our program tailored to meet the demands of industry leaders.

Request Information

Hear From Our Graduates

Double Quote Icon

I picked CDI College because the teachers are very involved and they make sure that you always know what you're doing.

Emily C.

Social Services Worker Program Graduate

Double Quote Icon

A great experience and a great course! Addiction Counselling and Community Worker program. Kelly Johnson is very professional and knowledgeable and keeps classes fun and organized.

Darlene U.

Social Services Worker - Foundations Program Graduate

Start Your Career Journey Today

Click on the button to book an appointment and:

  • Get Start Dates
  • Learn About Your Tuition and Funding Options
  • Meet An Admissions Representative for FREE One-on-One Career Advice