Social Work San Francisco State University

Overview

Key features

The Social Work MSW program offered at San Francisco State University teaches students to demonstrate the integration and application of social work competencies in practice with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.

Program Learning Outcomes

• Education: Learn from and apply the rigorous SFSU social work education that achieves the nine Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) curricular competencies at the graduate (MSW) level. Utilize education and research to inform and effectively engage in practice at micro (individuals, families, and groups), mezzo (organizations, institutions, and communities) and macro (societies and international arenas) levels.

• Application: Use knowledge and skills to affect all practice areas (direct and indirect). Know and understand multiple forms of power, and their forms, uses, and implications. Be skilled at giving, engaging and sharing power and instilling shared, delegated, and/or “other person” responsibilities in decision making and problem solving.

• Diverse Learners: Expect, accept, and appreciate human differences in all areas, including diversity of ethnicities, cultures, values, backgrounds, learning styles, problem solving approaches, and more. Promote diversity to enrich environments, thought processes, experiences, and more.

• Collaboration and Participation: Respect, value and honor one another’s personal and professional experiences, knowledge, skills, and values. Seek, receive, and utilize inputs from diverse persons, groups, and communities and make diversity- sensitive and appropriate decisions. Engage and utilize the voices of many through participatory means.

• Ethical Foundations and Leadership: Engage in professional practices that are ethically sound and appropriate, consistent with the National Association of Social Workers’ (NASW) Code of Ethics. Create ideas and action plans from research and interdisciplinary knowledge; instill visions among team members; and enact innovative actions having substantial impact on individuals, groups, organizations, communities, and societies.

• Progressive Development: Expand and enhance cognitive and affective abilities through continuous development of knowledge, values, skills, and practices. Utilize research to develop best practices to improve human conditions and generate research agendas through practice experiences.

• Advocacy and Activism for Progressive Change: Know multiple forms and purposes of advocacy, and engage in change plans and efforts to achieve progressive change at micro, mezzo, and macro levels. Utilize evidence to set agendas, establish goals, create action plans, and move forward with efforts to enhance human conditions, including political, economic, legal, social, cultural, and physical environments.

• Equity and Social Justice: Identify, understand, and evaluate multiple forms of justice (e.g. social, economic, environmental, political, and legal justice) and rights (human and civil). Promote and achieve fairness, equality, and human/civil rights.

• Professional Versatility: Be equipped to work in a variety of settings, in a range of fields and forms of practice, and with diverse persons from multiple backgrounds, cultures, ethnicities, nationalities, ages, genders, experiences, abilities, orientations, classes, religions, and more. Be effective in systems processes through engagement, assessment, intervention, evaluation, and self-awareness.

• Cultural Humility: Appreciate the fact that cultures and values evolve and change, and that one never “arrives” with respect to knowledge, skills, and practices related to diversity. Identify and analyze the intersectionality of forces that impinge on lives.

Career paths

Graduates of the Master of Social Work program are prepared for advanced level professional positions in both public and private social service agencies and community organizations. Subject to the laws of the State of California, MSW graduates are eligible to take the examination to become a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) two years after graduation. They are also eligible to take social work licensing examinations in other states. In addition, to prepare for advanced level professional practice, MSW graduates can go on to doctoral programs in social work/social welfare and related fields such as public policy, public health, gerontology, psychology, education, and law. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2015), employment opportunities for the profession of social work is expected to grow by 12 percent between 2014 and 2024.