Department of Social Work

Robin Ringstad, Ph.D., Chair

Office: Demergasso-Bava Hall — DBH 122
Phone: (209) 667-3091

Professors: Floyd, Garcia, Marques, Tynan, Tibrewal
Associate Professor: Ringstad
Assistant Professors: Breshears, E., Leyva

Graduate Programs in the Department of Social Work:

Master of Social Work (MSW)

Learning Objectives

FOUNDATION

Graduate social workers who:

Apply critical thinking skills to professional social work practice.
Understand and are guided by the values and ethics of the profession.
Demonstrate the ability to practice without discrimination and with respect, knowledge, and skills related to diverse client populations.
Advocate for social justice by understanding and working to expose paradigms of oppression and discrimination and those mechanisms and structures that serve those paradigms.
Understand the history of social work profession and utilize this knowledge as a context for understanding and addressing current practice issues.
Engage clients to assess and intervene at all system levels using a generalist perspective that incorporates client strengths.
Apply theoretical frameworks supported by research to understand individual development and behavior across the life span, between individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.
Analyze, formulate, and influence social policies and understand the integral relationship between policy and practice.
Use research to inform and continually update and evaluate practice.
Use supervision, consultation, and continuing education to strengthen practice.
Understand and operate within organizational structures and service delivery systems and seek necessary change.
Use communication skills differentially across client populations, colleagues, and communities.
Carry out critical self-analysis and self evaluation.

ADVANCED

Graduate social workers who:

Engage in autonomous practice that is highly differentiated, discriminating, ethical, and self-critical using the integrative practice approach.
Apply and promote paradigms of social and economic justice and liberation to continually advance the larger social work profession and refind the quality of their own practice.
Demonstrate a spirit of inquiry characterized by curiosity and a motivation to learn about others whose lives are different from one’s own and the strengths utilized by those individuals and groups.