Hi everybody and welcome to Applied Leadership in Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health. My name is Sharon Hodges, and I'm a research professor in the Department of Child and Family Studies. I've spent pretty much my entire career on program implementation and system development in child and adolescent behavioral health. This course will introduce you to a variety of materials about leadership theory and applied practice that I hope will be useful for you in your academic careers as well as your professional practice. 

As you can tell by the title, this course has an applied focus. During the semester, I hope you'll become well grounded in leadership theory and practice. We're going to work from a textbook and it's going to introduce you to all the major concepts and theories of leadership, including what's used now in contemporary leadership practice. Many of your assignments this semester will focus on your self-reflection and assessment of your own leadership potential. So I also hope you come away from this course with a good understanding of yourself as a leader, your strengths, and what you hope to do to continue your professional development as a leader. 

On a weekly basis, you're going to be doing readings, and you're going to have a discussion assignment weekly. In addition to that, there are going to be some assignments that you work on across the semester. Your final assignment for this semester will be a leadership portfolio. In the portfolio, you'll have a chance to discuss your own philosophy as a leader, and you'll have a chance to assess your strengths and your development plan for leadership. I have high expectations that you'll commit yourself fully to the course and that you'll give both the readings that you have to do and the more experiential aspects of the coursework your full focus. 

Leadership is important because one of the most valuable ways that you can help children and families is to make positive contributions to the organizations that serve them. And in that way your role as leaders or future leaders in child and adolescent behavioral health organizations make a true contribution.