The mission of the Master of Social Work program at The University of Alabama School of Social Work is to prepare advanced scholar practitioners to improve the lives of individuals and families, enhance community well-being, and advocate for policies that support systemic change.

Graduates of the MSW program will be able to:

• Deliver evidence-based social work practice to diverse client systems.
• Advocate for vulnerable populations at the individual, group, and community levels.
• Engage in culturally competent advanced social work practice with diverse groups.
• Analyze, formulate, and influence organizational and government policies.
• Apply social work values and ethics to practice.

Curriculum

The MSW program is fully accredited by the Council on Social Work Education. The curriculum follows the curriculum policy requirements of the Council on Social Work Education and provides a balanced, integrated approach that includes a professional foundation and a choice of concentrations. The professional foundation curriculum taken the first year consists of coursework in the following:

• Social work practice. This area of the curriculum is designed to provide practice knowledge and competencies in working with individuals, groups, families, communities, and organizations.
• Human behavior and the social environment. This area of the curriculum helps the student to understand the whole person and the process of growth, change, adaptation, social functioning, and dysfunction of the environmental context, including family, groups, formal organizations, and communities. Courses in this area cover prenatal stages through the process of aging.
• Social welfare policy and services. This area of the curriculum is designed to help the student identify, appraise, analyze, and understand social change in its dynamic perspectives; the role and responsibility of social work as a profession in influencing social policy; and the delivery of service to individuals and society.

MSW Program Foundation Objectives:

Foundation Year MSW students will demonstrate the ability to:

• Apply critical thinking skills within the context of professional social work practice.
• Understand the value base of the profession and its ethical standards and principles, and practice accordingly.
• Practice without discrimination and with respect, knowledge, and skills related to clients’ age, class, color, culture, disability, ethnicity, family structure, gender, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex, and sexual orientation.
• Understand and interpret the history of the social work profession and its contemporary structures and issues.
• Apply the knowledge and skills of generalist social work perspective to practice with systems of all sizes.

Concentration Objectives

In professional social work intervention with children, youth, and their families, or adults and their families, students will demonstrate:

• The ability to effectively apply selected models and methods of advanced social work practice, consistent with social work values and ethics, with an emphasis in public and non-profit social services.
• The ability to use reflectively the theoretical approaches and knowledge bases underlying their practice with particular attention to the life course perspective.
• The ability to evaluate their own practice.
• The ability to analyze the impact of social welfare policies on clients and practice situations.
• The ability to practice in ways that are culturally and gender appropriate with low-income persons and with those who have experienced social and economic injustice.