University of Maryland Graduate School

This in-person launch seminar will take place at UMBGS in Baltimore. It will be an intensive seminar in concepts of vulnerability and violence with program faculty and an opportunity for students entering the MS program to meet and share their backgrounds and goals. The seminar will consist of lectures, interactive case studies, and site visits.  The purpose of the in-person launch seminar is to bring students together as a cohort that moves through the program together to form a network of international collaborators sharing best practices and innovative solutions to violence reduction.

This course is designed to provide students with a strong theoretical understanding of the enablers, inhibitors, dynamics, and drivers of violence at the individual, community and city levels. It will draw on significant research in different contexts including: the United Kingdom, Latin America, United States, Canada, and SE Asia. This research will prepare the student to understand how the enablers and inhibitors of violence can be geographically restricted, but also how they transcend international boundaries as a result of organized crime, terrorism, and gangs. It will also draw on significant research and responses by the professional community (e.g. local and national government, third sector, education, and public health) to best counter and mitigate the impacts of violence. The applied portion of this new course will include specific case studies examining the entire lifecycle of violence, including the unintended consequences of both violent acts and responses.

This course is designed to provide students with advanced learning opportunities intended to increase students’ knowledge of how to apply different theories andintervention strategies to the assessment and response to experiencing homicide, state sanctioned and structural violence for diverse marginalized global communities. Using ecological, social justice, trauma and coping theories, this course will prepare students to: identify and critically examine the root causes and psychosocial consequences of experiencing chronic homicide, state sanctioned and structural violence; understand their intersectional and traumatic impact on communities; and explore culturally responsive intervention methods for helping communities cope and thrive after experiencing such tragedy. In addition, the impact of working with communities exposed to violent traumatic events for the researcher/ provider will be explored with recommendations for self-care. 

The applied portion of the course uses specific case studies to demonstrate the student’s ability to apply theory to practice through the development and application of culturally responsive intervention approaches to program development and practice.

This course examines violence using a public health framework focused on prevention and interventions on a societal level. The course prepares interprofessional learners to identify risks for violence across the lifespan and its impact on individuals, families, systems, communities, and society, globally. Intentional and unintentional juries, destruction, economic devastation, and trauma are a few of the burdens of violence on society. Violence can be prevented when interventions use a public health approach: assessing the problem, identifying causes and risks, and developing effective, scalable interventions. Using social justice theories, the WHO social determinants of health framework, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the social ecological model, the course will unravel root causes of structural violence in order to develop interventions that impact upstream factors. The three levels of prevention, primary, secondary, and tertiary, will outline approaches that prevent, evaluate, and mitigate consequences of violence. The course will explore scientific interventions that change the trajectory of violence. Public health policy, enforcement, advocacy, education or practice based innovations will be highlighted. Programs such as Mental Health First aid, RAPID model, Violence Intervention Programs, mobile health technology, community intervention resources, system responses, and the WHO Global Campaign for Violence Prevention will be presented as examples of evidence based injury control and violence reduction resources that may be applied globally.

This course focuses on the philosophies, policies, and processes necessary for communities, organizations, and societies to manage conflict and sustain peace. Effective conflict management is an essential skill for any leader. Using the foundation of restorative justice and conflict management theory, the course explores a variety of the methods used to break the cycle of conflict. Students begin by critically exploring the spectrum of dispute resolution processes used in civil, criminal, and public policy contexts in the United States and internationally. Once students have a more comprehensive understanding of conflict management and relationship building, they will examine their own relationship with conflict and its impact on their own leadership skills.

The applied portion of the course uses specific case studies to demonstrate both successful and unsuccessful conflict resolution interventions. Students will engage in a series of skill-building exercises to increase their individual capacity to mediate conflict and use the skills in simulated settings. The course culminates with students applying the new skills and processes to a relevant situation in their own life, community, or organization.

This course is designed to help students gain insights into economic and social value creation. Specifically, the purpose of this course is to provide students with hands-on exposure to the entrepreneurial pursuit of social and health impact and innovation. Students will learn to recognize and critically assess various forms of social and health enterprise strategies as tools of economic development and social transformation.  Students will gain a greater understanding of the challenges of growing and sustaining a social or health enterprise.

Students gain a deeper understanding of violence and its impact on vulnerable populations through the application of theories and culturally responsive approaches to practice. This research and implementation practicum emphasizes interdisciplinary, intercultural, interpersonal communication and training by building upon student’s critical knowledge, theories and skills learned in VVR 601-605. The practicum is designed to teach students how to apply their knowledge and skills to real world community based research projects. Based on student interest and skill level, students will be matched with a course instructor and serve on their research team to learn about applied research methods. Students will learn how to; design and implement programs with and for communities impacted by violence; develop and implement evaluation tools, understand, and complete research tasks such as conducting literature searches, entering and coding data, and assisting with data collection. Students are required to attend lab/center meetings. Tasks vary throughout the semester and across labs/centers.

The capstone is designed to be a supervised learning experience and a demonstration of the substantive application of the knowledge and skills that have been acquired in the courses taken as part of the MS in Vulnerability and Violence Prevention. The capstone functions as both the practice experience and the culminating experience for the program. The MS in Vulnerability and Violence Prevention capstone experience includes the following components: development of a capstone proposal; delivery of an oral presentation via live video feed, and at the field placement site as appropriate; and preparation of a capstone portfolio.

The Culminating Seminar will take place at Coventry University and provide an opportunity for students to work with program faculty to prepare a public presentation of their research and Capstone projects and receive feedback from a curated panel of experts. Following multiple rounds of feedback, students will present their research and Capstone projects at the public RISING Global Forum in Coventry.