Mission Statement and Program Goals
The California State University at Northridge, Department of Social Work, MSW Program mission, goals and objectives are to prepare advanced professional practitioners to address the needs of the San Fernando Valley and the greater Los Angeles and Southern California regions and to enhance social services for people in urban environments through a strengths-based urban family practice model while promoting social justice with special sensitivity to the multicultural and multinational population.
Our mission, goals and objectives are woven throughout the curriculum. We prepare graduates to work successfully with a variety of client systems. The MSW Program is grounded in a strengths-based framework to promote the wellbeing of urban families and urban communities. Our curriculum incorporates content on the profession’s history, purposes, and philosophy. It emphasizes critical and creative thinking that will enable our graduates to initiate, adapt, and evaluate interventions for urban families, while remaining alert to relevant national and global issues. The Program trains professionals to practice ethically and competently and to integrate social work knowledge, process and values into all professional activities.
Program Goals
Our mission has guided the faculty in the development of programmatic goals. Through the use of curriculum committees, we have integrated our mission statements into our goals and objectives. The mission, goals and objectives are reflective of the knowledge development and research purpose of social work education.
The program has goals derived from its mission and these goals reflect and incorporate the purposes of social work education defined in the Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards statement.
The mission of the Master of Social Work program is to maintain and enhance social services for people in urban environments by educating professional, master’s level social workers, with special sensitivity to the multicultural populations of the San Fernando Valley and the greater Los Angeles and Southern California regions.
- To develop graduate social workers who understand and advocate for effective social services in increasingly complex and diverse communities such as those that exist in the San Fernando Valley and Southern California.
- To inspire students to commit to a vision of social work practice based on human rights and social justice.
- To prepare students with the knowledge and skills necessary to carry out various practice roles with people from diverse backgrounds across multiple levels and settings from a local, regional, national and global perspective.
- To advance social work practice through the use and development of research knowledge and skills.
- To provide students with the knowledge and skills to develop and implement policy and programs and to practice from a strengths-based perspective.
- To prepare students for leadership roles in the development, implementation, and evaluation of services for urban families or within urban social service environments.