As travel and communication across the globe become easier and more frequent, service professionals often join international human services organizations to provide services abroad. Additionally, many immigrants seek human services for issues related to events that occur in their home countries. In either case, providers abroad or in large cities in the United States often encounter clients who are victims of war, poverty, or political upheaval.

It is important that, as a student of psychology, you gain an understanding of the issues involved in serving international victims. This assignment highlights the importance of understanding the victims’ culture, strengths, and potential, so that as providers you can catalyze the victims’ ability to help themselves most effectively.

Imagine you are a news correspondent for a major national newspaper. Your editor has asked you to write a review of a brief film for this weekend’s edition of the newspaper. View both parts of the brief film below, Women of Liberia: Fighting for Peace:

Download the PDF Transcript here.

Use the Internet, your textbook, and the Argosy University online library resources to research international victims in this field.

Using at least one of the academic sources you find through your search to justify your ideas, address the following issues in your review:

• Discuss the impact of class, gender, and politics on women in Liberia.
• How did some women make a difference? What was the outcome?
• What human service efforts had the greatest impact?
• Why do you think the women benefited most from helping themselves and each other within their own communities, rather than accepting outside help?

Write your initial response in a minimum of 350 words. Apply APA standards to citation of sources.

By Week 5, Day 4, post your response to the appropriate Discussion Area. Through Week 5, Day 7, review and comment on at least two peers’ responses. Provide a statement of clarification, a point of view with rationale, challenge a point of discussion, or draw a relationship between one or more points of the discussion.

Descriptions “describe”—they depict the “what is” of a statement. Prescriptions “prescribe”—they express the “what ought to be” of a statement. When approaching controversial or emotionally charged subjects, critical thinkers are mindful of the different roles that facts and values play in people’s judgments and the different roles they play in different kinds of judgments. This assignment will help deepen your understanding of those distinctions.

To see how an issue can be approached using a descriptive or prescriptive argument, review these examples. Descriptive and prescriptive arguments are considered in the lecture pages for Module 3.

Based on your understanding of descriptive and prescriptive arguments, respond to the following:

• Identify a topic of interest for which arguments of different perspectives can be created.
• Construct one original descriptive argument and one original prescriptive argument for the topic you select.

Support your arguments with scholarly references. Be sure to provide citations for your sources as well as citations for a premise you state to be a fact.

Write your initial response in a total of 200–300 words. Apply APA standards to citation of sources.

By Week 3, Day 3, post your response to the appropriate Discussion Area. Through Week 3, Day 7, review at least two peers’ responses. Each response should be at least 75 words in length. Critically comment on how they have used evidence in different types of arguments. Be sure to address the following:

• Identify the supporting evidence for their arguments.
• Offer an assessment of the strength of the evidence provided in support of the argument. Include a rationale for your statements. You may offer a suggestion for improved supporting evidence.

Grading Criteria and Rubric

In M1: Assignment 2, you identified and explained the weakest or strongest argument in a set of articles. You identified the premises and conclusions, discussed whether or not an inference was warranted, and discussed matters of truth and consistency within the specified subject.

Review your work in M1: Assignment 2 where you analyzed the sets of articles assigned to you.

Using these articles, complete the following:

• Provide your position on the issue in the articles assigned to you.
• State and explain a key objection to your position on this issue.
• Despite the objection, develop a counterargument to defend your position. (This will likely be an “engulf-and-devour” argument.)

You may use the M1: Assignment 2 readings as sources for evidence and facts. Be sure to do the following:

• Use additional references to support your arguments and provide evidence as needed.
• Use key language and phrases suggested in your readings.
• Apply APA standards to citation of sources.

Write your initial response in 200–300 words. Be sure to reply to at least two of your classmates using at least 75 words per response.

By Week 2, Day 3, post your response to the appropriate Discussion Area. Through Week 2, Day 7, review and comment on at least two peers’ responses.

Grading Criteria and Rubric