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The MSW Program objectives are derived from its goals. The objectives are to:

1. Prepare MSW graduates who have internalized social work values and ethics and who demonstrate the application of these standards in their professional practice.
2. Prepare MSW graduates who will utilize the EPPSE (ecological perspective, problem solving process model and the empowerment perspective) in Direct Practice and Policy, Planning and Administration as conceptual frameworks and who will apply critical thinking skills, synthesizing and applying appropriate theories and knowledge to multiple levels of interventions in meeting needs and addressing problems with a wide range of client systems, including individuals, families, groups, public and private organizations, and rural and urban communities.
3. Prepare MSW graduates who have acquired knowledge, values, ethics and skills of the professional foundation and who will apply the knowledge, skills values and ethics of the generalist social work perspective with systems of all sizes.
4. Prepare MSW graduates who demonstrate critical thinking skills, who have acquired knowledge and who will apply this knowledge, including evidence-based theoretical frameworks in their professional practice.
5. Prepare MSW graduates who understand and can interpret the history and current structures and issues of the social work profession.
6. Prepare MSW graduates who understand and appreciate human diversity and understand the forms and mechanisms of oppression and discrimination as well as change strategies and skills that advance social and economic justice, and who are committed to practice on behalf of the poor, historically oppressed populations, oppressed and other socially disadvantaged and vulnerable people and who will work toward the elimination of social and economic injustices, including poverty, oppression, discrimination, and stereotyping.
7. Prepare MSW graduates who demonstrate mastery of knowledge and skills of social work practice, including the professional use of self, relationship and communication skills, and the differential use of communication skills with a variety of client populations, colleagues and the community at large.
8. Prepare MSW graduates who critically analyze, synthesize and apply knowledge of human behavior in the social environment, including the positive values of diversity, the interrelatedness of the biological, psychological, sociological and cultural systems, and environmental influences on diverse populations and who apply theoretical frameworks to understand client systems, and the interaction between client systems (individuals, families, groups, organizations and communities).
9. Prepare MSW graduates who are knowledgeable about the research process and who use research methods to assess, improve, monitor and evaluate research and apply findings to social work practice, to conduct empirical evaluations of their own practice and those of relevant systems, and contribute to the development of theory and the social work knowledge base.
10. Prepare MSW graduates who (a) understand and interpret social welfare history and social welfare policies and services, including the nature and scope of politics, power and the bureaucracy (b) analyze the impact of social policies on client systems, workers, and agencies and (c) demonstrate skills for influencing policy formation and implementing strategies of advocacy.
11. Prepare MSW graduates who have the knowledge, values, ethics, and skills in foundation area and who synthesize and apply these standards in the Field.
12. Prepare MSW graduates who use and provide supervision, consultation and state-of-the-art technology appropriate to advanced practice in concentration areas.
13. Prepare MSW graduates who function within the structure of organizations and service delivery systems and seek necessary organizational change.
14. Prepare MSW graduates who critically apply knowledge of rural and urban populations in interventions with vulnerable individuals, groups, families and organizations in rural and urban communities throughout Alabama and across regional, national and international boundaries.
15. Attract, recruit, prepare and graduate MSW students from historically oppressed populations to assume leadership role in the profession of social work.

Page last changed: May 27 2009 10:29:44
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