Master of Social Work (MSW)

This course teaches a generalist approach to social work practice based on an empowerment model. Students will acquire the knowledge, skills, values, and methods of generalist social work to facilitate the assessment, planning, intervention, and ending phases of the practice process. This course emphasizes social justice, cultural competence, and practice with members of oppressed groups.

This course views macro social work practice strategies through an empowerment-focused lens. To do so, it incorporates a structural approach to community practice, which recognizes the reciprocal relationship between individuals and the broader society. This paradigm requires cultural humility and accompaniment as prerequisites for transformative work with historically marginalized communities. Along the way, students will survey a wide array of macro social work strategies to redress oppressive power dynamics. These methods include social groupwork, community organizing, and strategic nonviolent resistance. Students will also gain practical experience developing nonprofit organizational structure, facilitating simulated community meetings, and engaging in critical group dialogue around contemporary social issues. This course promotes the collaborative skills necessary for empowerment-oriented community practice.

This course advances students' abilities to implement empowerment-oriented strategies with participants in a clinical setting. Students will develop a strengths-focused, research-supported, and collaborative clinical approach to address participant issues in ways that highlight participant strengths, maintain sensitivity to cultural and gender diversity, and recognize the value of contextual change. Specifically, students will become proficient in facilitating a strengths-based approach, intervening in situations from a cognitive-behavioral perspective, and working to align clinical efforts with participant readiness through strategies to recognize and accentuate participant motivation, acceptance and commitment. Methods of instruction include readings, teacher presentations, class discussions, demonstrations, skill development labs, classroom exercises, video recording, and experiential activities. To develop cultural competence, students will critically analyze practice activities to improve their work with ethnic and racial minorities, people in poverty, women, the LGBTQAI+ populations, older adults, and people with differing abilities. Students will learn to collaborate with diverse participants, especially those who are oppressed. This course also facilitates students' continuing appraisal of their own professional development through written reflection, self-evaluation, video recording review, peer feedback, and instructor evaluation. The outcome of this course will be the student's development of the knowledge, skills, and values to implement an empowerment approach to interpersonal practice - one that fits the student's professional style, advances the social work profession's purposes and values, and reflects sensitivity to human diversity.

Focuses on empowerment practice through designing and implementing change efforts within organizational and sociopolitical realms. Students will acquire knowledge and skills to mobilize participant groups toward social change, reshape organizations to empower rather than oppress participants, to create opportunity structures through societal resource expansion, and to fashion a just and responsive community environment.

Comprehensive overview of the provision of mental health services in the United States as they are provided in mental health setting and in other health and human service settings. Addresses definitions of mental health and mental illness, the effect of mental illness on diverse participant systems, utilization and critical evaluation of the DSM 5, and the strengths model of case management in working with persons with severe and persistent mental illness. Examine mental health policy, the impact of managed care on mental health services, and advances in mental health research.

This specialization course aims to prepare MSW students for empowerment child welfare practice with families and children. It includes a scrutiny of the historical progression of child welfare policies and a systemic analysis of the social, cultural, economic, and political forces that define current child welfare policies and practices. The course addresses adverse contemporary social conditions that plague families and children, and identifies mechanisms by which detrimental effects can be reduced or altogether prevented. MSW 560 capitalizes upon building students' competence in working with structurally and culturally diverse families and children, identifying their strengths, and building empowering collaborations with them for effective and ethical case management processes and outcomes. Various forms of child maltreatment are studied within the context of research-based, theory-driven prevention, early identification, and competent treatment modalities. Child welfare programs are scrutinized with primary considerations weighted on evaluations of the strengths and limitations of these programs in addressing the diverse strengths and needs of the families and children, and understanding them within an ecosystemic framework. Throughout the course, the role of child welfare workers as child and family advocates in the pursuit of positive systemic reform is accentuated and elaborated.

This course utilizes a dynamic and experiential format to involve students in theory-based activities, observation groups, and role plays exemplifying empowerment-influenced ways to intervene with couples and families. An anti-oppressive practice perspective orients students to attend to diversity in multiple and complex ways that apply to families. Students will observe faculty and other students applying family therapy techniques, participate in role plays, and observe and self-evaluate through the use of recorded role plays. Students will demonstrate understanding and application of family practice theories within a role play situation and through analysis of multiple family scenarios. Throughout the course, a focus on developing self-awareness will prepare students to monitor their work to ensure that they intervene collaboratively with couples and families and facilitate participants' abilities to take charge of their own outcomes.

This is an elective course designed to provide students in the human services with a conceptual and practical components of social gerontology. To this end, the diverse and extensive scope of learning encompasses both recurrent and newly emerging issues, concerns, and problems associated with the aging population. In order to help students develop knowledge and better understanding on complicated needs of the elderly, family, community, and society at large, this course will give principal focus to the varying macro, mezzo, and micro contexts from which ethical, relational and cultural issues can be addressed. The process of aging and surviving into the "later years" results from a complex interplay of social forces, human systems, and social policies, which impinge upon groups and individuals. It will be impossible to discuss every force that interacts in this complex scheme, thus the focus of this course will be upon the social and social psychological components of the aging process and the relationship of these forces to social policy and social service delivery to the elderly.

This elective provides an introductory context for social work practice with military service members, veterans and their families. It explores contemporary policy and practice issues with a particular sensitivity to the influence of military service on historically marginalized populations. It considers the myriad ways in which political discourses surrounding the citizen-soldier construct have inequitably affected diverse populations along the lines of age, class, race/ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and ability. Micro, mezzo, and macro interventions will be explored through strengths-based and empowerment-focused lenses.

This practicum takes place in community agency settings 12 hours per week over both fall and spring semesters for a total of 400 hours. The generalist practicum places emphasis on the application of skills for generalist social work practice in an agency setting. This practicum prepares students for generalist social work practice with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. The seminar provides students with support and opportunities for integrating classroom learning and the practicum experience to further develop social work knowledge and skills.

This practicum takes place in community agency settings 12 hours per week over both fall and spring semesters for a total of 400 hours. The generalist practicum places emphasis on the application of skills for generalist social work practice in an agency setting. This practicum prepares students for generalist social work practice with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. The seminar provides students with support and opportunities for integrating classroom learning and the practicum experience to further develop social work knowledge and skills.

This course takes place in community agency settings 15 hours per week over both fall and spring semesters for a total of 500 hours. The Empowerment Specialization Practicum teaches students to advance and refine social work practice and the social work profession. Students learn to synthesize multidisciplinary knowledge and skills with a clear vision toward individualization of participants and situations to ensure both cultural competence and cultural humility, ensure basic human rights, demonstrate participant respect, and develop creative solutions arising from unique circumstances. The empowerment curriculum sets students on a life-long praxis process of action, reflection, evaluation, and informed action to ensure competent participant-centered practice, promote their own professional development, and contribute to the social work profession.

This course takes place in community agency settings 15 hours per week over both fall and spring semesters for a total of 500 hours. The Empowerment Specialization Practicum teaches students to advance and refine social work practice and the social work profession. Students learn to synthesize multidisciplinary knowledge and skills with a clear vision toward individualization of participants and situations to ensure both cultural competence and cultural humility, ensure basic human rights, demonstrate participant respect, and develop creative solutions arising from unique circumstances. The empowerment curriculum sets students on a life-long praxis process of action, reflection, evaluation, and informed action to ensure competent participant-centered practice, promote their own professional development, and contribute to the social work profession.

Designed for persons who hold an MSW degree from a CSWE accredited program who wish to complete the necessary requirements for School Social Work Endorsement. The practicum includes a minimum of 500 contact hours in an approved school setting under the supervision of an assigned school social work field instructor.

This elective course introduces MSW students to a range of disability-related topics in the context of social work practice. Students will critically examine different models of disability, such as the medical and social models, and will consider how perspectives on disability have evolved throughout history. Students will analyze social justice issues through a disability lens, with a particular emphasis on the intersection of disability with other marginalized identities. Students will examine ways in which social workers can advocate for disability justice across all levels and areas of social work practice.

The Empowerment Practicum Seminar provides students with support and opportunities for integrating classroom learning and the practicum experience to further develop social work knowledge and skills in the advanced empowerment method. Core components of this seminar include social work values and ethical principles in social work practice and research; program evaluation and outcomes measurement; and consideration of future issues in social work practice. The practicum seminar serves as a professional support group and provides an opportunity for professional leadership and skill development.

This course provides students with support and opportunities for integrating classroom learning and the practicum experience to further develop social work knowledge and skills in the advanced empowerment method. Core components of this seminar include social work values and ethical principles in practice and research; program evaluation and outcomes measurement; preparation for professional social work practice, and consideration of future issues in social work practice. The practicum seminar serves as a professional support group and provides an opportunity for professional leadership and skill development.

Learn about the multiple factors which affect human biological growth, personality development, and behavior. Focus on interactions between the developing person, their family, and the social systems in which that lifelong development takes place. Study human development within the context of those biological, psychological, and socio-cultural systems which affect, and are affected by, human beings. Incorporated into this context is current knowledge related to ethnic minorities and oppressed groups. In connection with such course content, attention is also focused on differences in values and identities, and the issues that they generate for the understanding of human development, and for the role of the social work practitioner.

This course provides students with knowledge and theory on groups, communities, society, and the global community. Students will explore multiple identity development models and how these influence behavior of individuals, reactions of outgroup members, and alleviate misconceptions and stereotypes about vulnerable populations. Students will learn where they are individually in their development and the impact of identity development stages on behavior and group cohesion. Students will learn to identify oppressive practices in organizational policies and practices and be provided techniques to reduce or eliminate these policies and practices to decrease the negative impact on marginalized groups. The instructor will facilitate a dynamic, experiential, and literature/video-based approach to stimulate student interest and learning about identity development and bias reduction. Learning modalities could include readings, critique papers, essays, quizzes, in-class or online discussions, and an Identity Development Change Plan project. This course provides a theoretical and practical understanding of identity development, oppression, discrimination, and diversity at the micro-, mezzo-, and macro-levels of practice.

This course provides students with knowledge and theory on groups, communities, society and the global community in the context of social policy. Students will explore identity development and theories of diversity and how these influence behavior of individuals, reactions of outgroup members, and alleviate misconceptions and stereotypes about vulnerable populations. Students will learn where they are individually in their development and the impact of identity development on behavior and group cohesion. Students will learn to identify oppressive practices in organizational policies and practices and be provided techniques to reduce or eliminate these policies and practices to decrease the negative impact on marginalized groups. The course also features application of an analytical framework to critically study and analyze current public policy issues and legislation that affects various fields of practice in the social services delivery system. Focuses on the role of the social worker as policy practitioner of social policy development, implementation and analysis. In addition to public policy analysis, students will be introduced to the role of the social worker as policy practitioner for social policy development. Topical contemporary issues on the social welfare policy agenda will be examined in this course for the harmony (or disharmony) with the values of the social work profession and their impact on population groups who are socially, politically and economically vulnerable.

As the first course of the research sequence, this course is designed to help students gain an understanding of and appreciation for the use of research as a tool for professional evidence-based practice with and on behalf of at-risk populations and to evaluate programs and practices. Students are introduced to the concepts and skills underlying a systematic approach to social work research, including basic research terminology, the scientific method in social work, the value of research in social work, research ethics and the social work value base, problem formulation and conceptualization, measurement, research designs, sampling, alternative quantitative and qualitative data gathering and analytic techniques, and relevant information and computer technologies.

This course focuses on the research and analytical skills needed to understand, assess and improve social work practices and programs. The application of these methods and tools include the areas of quantitative and qualitative data analysis and program evaluation. The impact of both the personal and professional values of the research will be explored in the course as applied to research processes. Specifically, the need to take into account issues related to diverse and at-risk populations is emphasized. The person-in-the-environment is stressed as it is fundamental to understanding and effectively using social work research. Substantive content from the areas of the describing, monitoring, understanding, and evaluating performance are integrated into the course through in-class and online activities and the required and recommended readings and assignments.

Examines the history of the social work profession and its contribution to the development of social welfare programs and policies in the United States. Covers policy considerations in various fields of social work practice with special attention to social policies and their effects on women and dependent children, and people deprived of power because of race, age, physical or mental disability, and diverse political, religious, and sexual orientation.

This second course in social policy builds on the introductory and historical content of MSW 810 to apply an analytic framework to study and analyze current public policy issues and legislation that affect fields of practice in the social services delivery system. In addition to public policy analysis, students will be introduced to the role of the social worker as policy practitioner for social policy development. Topical contemporary issues on the social welfare policy agenda will be examined in this course for the harmony (or disharmony) with the values of the social work profession and their impact on population groups who are socially, politically, and economically vulnerable.

This course is designed to provide students with the requisite knowledge for effective, strengths-based, ethical, legal and empowering supervision of personnel and program administration in social service organizations. This course examines the purpose, principles, and methods of supervision and consultation which are applicable to many settings in social work. This course covers theories of organizations, organizational behavior and supervision, and emphasizes skills-development that are requisite to assuming the responsibilities specific to practice. It examines job analysis and design, personnel recruitment and selection, training and development, performance evaluation, and retention and dismissal. In addition, the course provides opportunities for students to conceptualize and examine their own approaches to supervision and develop a repertoire of strengths-oriented empowering strategies and perspectives for supervision. Through the examination of case scenarios, the required readings, small group work, and two papers, and the many issues, problems and dilemmas faced by supervisors, we will explore and analyze both effective and ineffective responses, practices and resolutions.

This course prepares students for effective multi-systemic social work practice in public school settings. Emphasis is placed on knowledge and skill development for assessment and intervention in multicultural school settings and practice with diverse student groups. Education law, especially as it relates to special education eligibility and services, is a core aspect of the course. Topics include effective strategies for consultation with school personnel, organizational change, participation in multi-disciplinary teams and collaboration with community professionals. Topics range from the evolution of social work in schools to social work theory, assessment, and interventions for use in school settings. Content on multiculturalism, diversity, social justice, and social change are integrated into the course materials as these critical issues relate to practice in schools. Effective strategies for consultation with school personnel, for organizational change, participation in multi-disciplinary teams and collaboration with community professionals will be discussed. Students will acquire knowledge, values, and skills, associated with school social work roles, functions, and responsibilities.

Introduction of selected principles and skills of social justice applicable to social welfare settings. The influences of the U.S. economic system on funding patterns, organizational environments, structure, and staff roles within social welfare settings are considered. Issues to be faced and resolved in the global competition for scarce resources will receive special attention.

This course will prepare MSW students for leadership roles in the management of human service agencies and organizations. The course begins with an overview of the differences between leadership and management. The course addresses issues of effective leader behavior; including communication skills, leadership styles, and the use of power and influence. We will examine how effective leaders build teams and help others through the change process. Special attention will be paid to the role of the leader in setting a vision for the organization's planning, human resource utilization, resource development, and accountability and other management functions. The changing face of organizations will be addressed through discussions of the role of women and racial and ethnic minorities in leadership roles. Throughout the course, students will reflect on their leadership style, characteristics, and strengths.

This elective course in social work emphasizes comparative approaches to the analysis of mental health policies and practices in India and in the United States. Course content includes: international and comparative approaches in social welfare policy and practice, mental health as an area within international social work, mental health practice and policy in India and in the United States, cultural competency, and cross-cultural learning exchanges with social work students and mental health professionals in India. Rather than relying solely on books and journal articles, students learn directly by participating in lectures given by faculty at National Institute of Mental Health and NeuroSciences, attending clinical meetings, engaging in discussions with mental health professionals, visiting various social work organizations and schools, conversing with human rights activists and environmentalists, visiting important cultural landmarks in India, and reflecting on new knowledge and experiences.

This course is designed to provide knowledge and skills to promote competence for the prevention, identification, assessment, treatment, and referral of participants with substance using disorders across all practice settings. Included is current research concerning complex causal factors and empirically-based interventions as these etiologies and treatment technologies relate to diverse participant groups. Students will utilize a systemic approach in the evaluation of participant systems and apply a community-based recovery management model.

This elective course is designed for students interested in international social work and cross-national comparisons of social welfare programs and policies. Students interested in international social work practice abroad and/or for transnational work in the United States (for example, social work practice with immigrants, refugees, and international migrants or work in the field of international adoptions), will find this course useful in applying social work principles, the strengths perspective, and an empowerment perspective to social and economic development and cross-cultural social work practice.

Feminist Social Work will integrate both theoretical and practical experiences throughout the course. Students will examine many assumptions historically made about feminist movement and within specific oppressed groups. They will apply critical thinking skills in order to uncover the overt and covert messages, biases, and oppressive enforcement of patriarchy within life situations, research practices, agencies, state, local, and national policies. Additionally, students will move these thinking skills toward action. The course will utilize on-line class discussion, lecture, written assignments, internet advocacy, and experiential activities to enhance students' understanding and application of this information. Content from foundation courses will enhance the learning process by providing basic theory and practice upon which to build.

This course provides a comprehensive overview of the provision of health care services in the United States and addresses how social workers function within the health care system at the micro, meso, and macro levels of practice. Course goals include the following: to increase student understanding of the politics, policies, and services of the United States' patchwork health care system, to increase student understanding of integrated behavioral health and the role of the social worker in various health settings, to increase student ability to provide direct services to a variety of populations with an emphasis on vulnerable populations, to critically address and analyze health disparities and social determinants of health from an ethical practice perspective, and to develop participant interventions that reflect empowerment social work in a health care setting.

A holistic perspective of human systems requires assessment and intervention with attention to biological, psychological, sociological, and spiritual aspects of the human condition. Offers a framework and practice competencies for social workers to ethically respond to spiritual components of client experience, strength and needs. Included are principles for spiritual sensitive social work practice, including ethical principles, meaning of spirituality, spiritual development, and creating a spiritually sensitive context for practice.

This course will introduce students to the core concepts (general theory and foundation knowledge), informing evidence-based assessment and intervention. Trauma is broadly defined and includes children and adolescents exposed to trauma including: abuse, physical and emotional neglect and witnessing interpersonal crime (e.g. domestic violence), community violence and other traumatic events. The course will highlight the role of development, culture and empirical evidence in trauma specific assessments. Treatment interventions with children, adolescents and their families will be explored within the community and child welfare/juvenile justice systems. This course will also review self-care for the professional.

Presents special topics from the social work field that are not covered in the regular curriculum.

Students may choose to take an independent study in any semester as an elective for the purpose of increasing their depth of knowledge of a particular subject area, or broadening their knowledge to include a subject area that is new to them. Students may not fulfill the non-elective requirements of the degree through independent study; nor may they receive independent study credit for work which they have received-or will receive-academic credit from any graduate or undergraduate program.