這是一門社會工作的選修課，目的在於讓社會工作學生瞭解災難的性質、災難發生的過程，以及如何參與救災與重建的工作。依世界銀行2005年出版的報告《天然災害熱點：全球風險分析》（Natural Disaster Hotspots: A Global Risk Analysis）中指出，臺灣可能是世界上最易受到天然災害衝擊的地方，因為臺灣約有73%的人口居住在有三種以上災害可能衝擊的地區。如何預防災難與救援災難是社會工作者不可輕忽的課題。在災難救援過程中，社會工作者常是不可或缺的一員，而且是參與期間最長的一組人馬，從災難救援到復原、重建，往往經歷數月到數年。有鑑於災難的頻仍與社會工作者在救災中的重要性，2007年起美國社會工作教育委員會（Council of Social Work Education, CSWE）已提出「災難治理與社會工作」（Disaster Management and Social Work）的新課程供各社會工作學院參考。據此，災難治理已被視為是社會福利的一環。災難治理是一種跨專業的團隊合作經驗，社會工作者必須學習與工程、醫療、消防、民政、教育、農業、勞動、軍隊等專業合作；且必須與政府、民間、中央與地方部門一起工作。
According to the report Natural Disaster Hotspots: A Global Risk Analysis (Word Bank, 2005), Taiwan is the country most vulnerable to natural hazards, with 73.1 percent of its population inhabiting areas exposed to three or more hazards. Natural and technological hazards will continue to place people at risk to distress and losses in the 21st century. This is attributable to the pressure of a growing population, climate change, global warming, and long-term atmospheric cycles, which can be detrimental to the individual, family, community, and ecology. Families and communities struck by disaster suffer from sorrow and distress caused by injury, disease, death, poverty, or separation, which exposes the vulnerability of disadvantaged groups. Rogge (2003) pointed out that hazardous and traumatic events are definitely social welfare issues. Miller (2003) concurred, noting that a disaster—whether natural or human-induced—never fails to bring social workers to the site. Disasters not only cause human casualties, agricultural losses, collapse of houses, and disruption to transportation; they also give rise to a range of issues that need to be addressed, such as arrangement of emergency shelter, restoration of community life, and treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Only when disaster response takes into consideration the outcomes and process, people and environment, can it minimize the loss and damage wrought by the disaster.The purposes of this course are to help students to realize the nature of disasters, disaster management, and some crucial issues about disaster governance, such as community resilience, vulneralblity, cross culture, critical incident debriefing, disaster prevention and response mechanism.