BSW Program Overview
Welcome to the BSW Program,
The School of Social Work BSW Program offers students the opportunity to prepare themselves for the exciting, challenging profession of social work. Social work is the profession that works to enhance the social functioning of individuals and families, that promotes social change efforts aimed at achieving social justice, and that is often considered a calling to those who are committed to insuring the welfare of others.
The School of Social Work BSW Program educates its students for generalist practice, based on the premise that effective practice must address social issues and problems at multiple levels by utilizing a variety of theoretical frameworks, incorporating a range of intervention models and techniques, and playing a variety of social work roles. The program prepares graduates who not only function as generalists by virtue of being able to play a variety of roles, practice at multiple levels, and utilize a variety of techniques, but also prepares graduates who understand the interplay and connections between levels of practice, between individual functioning and societal structures, and between theory and practice.
The program identifies a number of elements of generalist practice, including the ability to view social problems and human development from broad ecological, strengths, and diversity perspectives. These perspectives allow for the understanding of social issues as interconnected and interwoven, which necessitates that a generalist possess the ability to synthesize knowledge from a variety of fields to intervene at a variety of levels while utilizing a variety of approaches. Generalists can also move between fields of practice, incorporate best practices into their professional repertoire, apply critical thinking skills to all phases of the change process, critique themselves and professional approaches, and see issues from a wide variety of perspectives.
Generalists draw on their broad knowledge and a common process for problem solving as well as on innovative and broad knowledge and skills to address each unique situation. They view client situations in context, recognizing the connections between the personal and the political, individual and societal, policy and practice, and research and practice. They build on client strengths, are solution oriented, and involve client systems as partners in the change process. Based on professional assessment skills, generalists decide which aspects of client situations are in need of intervention, why, and how. They see problems in social functioning as having their roots and their solutions at multiple levels, and as a result utilize interventions which build on this broad view. They operate from a core of professional social work values and ethics, and base all aspects of practice on the National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics.
Generalist social workers work within organizations and are impacted by social policies, and they see their responsibility to enhance both organizational and policy solutions to social problems. They are able to envision, plan, design and implement programs and services to fill existing gaps. Their frame of reference is broad, comprehensive, open to difference, client-oriented, and solution-focused.
Recognizing the interplay between individual, family, organizational, community, societal and global issues and systems, and in order to work effectively toward social justice at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels of practice, the program prepares students to enhance the social functioning of individuals and families, while also being prepared to intervene at group, community, and societal levels. Generalist practitioners need skills at all levels of practice, to move between them as necessary, and even to practice at multiple levels playing multiple roles simultaneously.
The BSW Program has identified eight Generalist Competencies and has woven the curriculum and field practicum together in such as way as to insure that graduates have acquired entry level competency in each of these areas. Those competencies are:
Generalist Competency 1
The generalist social worker practices at multiple levels (micro, mezzo, macro) and moves between systems and levels of practice based on client/client system needs and resources to enhance social functioning and facilitate social change.
Generalist Competency 2
The generalist social worker plays a variety of social work roles (advocate, broker, networker, counselor, educator, case manager, facilitator, planner, researcher, mediator, administrator) and moves between roles, matching them to client/client system need and resources.
Generalist Competency 3
The generalist social worker uses a variety of lenses and conceptual frameworks to guide practice, including the strengths perspective, ecological perspective, and diversity perspective.
Generalist Competency 4
The generalist social worker uses a variety of orienting theories to guide practice, including social systems theory, human development theory, group theory, organizational theory, community development theory, and societal development theory.
Generalist Competency 5
The generalist social worker uses a variety of practice theories and models to guide practice, including task centered casework, crisis intervention, client centered casework, empowerment model, cognitive behavioral model, mutual aid model, structural model, organizational development model, community development model, and social change model
Generalist Competency 6
The generalist social worker, in partnership with client systems, uses the planned change process of assessment, planning, intervention, termination, and evaluation.
Generalist Competency 7
The generalist social worker is guided by the National Association of Social Workers’ Code of Ethics, incorporates social work values into intervention at all levels, and uses a process for examining and dealing with ethical situation and dilemmas.
Generalist Competency 8
The generalist social worker is prepared for rural practice, building social work practice on an understanding of the interplay between individuals, families, community, societal and global forces.
The faculty and staff of the BSW Program are committed to helping students develop the competencies required of BSW level practice. To that end, the program has developed a BSW Competency Catalogue, which lists not only the Generalist Competencies listed above, but a number of other sets of competencies that will prepare graduates for professional practice.
Cindy Garthwait, MSSW
BSW Program Director
Graphics, Design, and Layout by Carrie Phillips at Spectral Fusion
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