MSW: Program Goals

As a result of their class and field education, MSW graduates will be able to:

Knowledge

• Understand and interpret the history of social welfare and its contemporary structures and issues.
• Understand the forms and mechanisms of oppression and discrimination and apply strategies of advocacy and social change that advance social and economic justice.
• Understand and critically analyze current systems of social service organization and delivery and derive implications for practice.
• Articulate the role of policy in framing social work practice and the impact of major social welfare policies on those who are served by social workers, workers themselves, agencies, and welfare systems.

Practice Skills

• Advocate for just, effective, and humane policies and policy implementation processes.
• Engender the empowerment of disadvantaged individuals, groups and communities through effective, culturally, and linguistically appropriate assessment, treatment/intervention and outcomes evaluation.
• Demonstrate how people and systems change and how change is facilitated from micro- to macro-systems levels.

Integration of Practice and Research

• Make well-reasoned and well-informed judgments in practice based on values, critical self-reflection, and evidence-supported theory and practice research.
• Understand and critically assess major social work practice frame-works, including the strengths and empowerment perspectives.
• Critically evaluate research, evidence and one's own practice.
• Contribute to the profession's knowledge base and practice through disciplined inquiry, including practice evaluation, participatory action research, efficacy and effectiveness trials, and the dissemination and institutionalization of evidence-based practice and policy models.

Values

• Understand the value base of the profession and its ethical standards and principles, and practice accordingly; engage in mindful and ethical use of self and continual professional development of skills and knowledge.

top