While working toward your BSW,  you will have an opportunity to take courses that will increase your knowledge and prepare you to apply the functional knowledge of the Social Work profession. These classes take on hard questions about diversity, social change, ethical interactions, inventions, and engagement with people, communities, and systems.

Social Work Major

Social Work Program Requirements

Have you ever thought about helping those who are living with a substance use disorder? Is there a possibility that you may engage an individual who is living with a substance use disorder in your future professions?  Are you interested in learning the answers to questions like “Why can’t they just stop?” or “What does the brain really look like on drugs?”  Then this may be the minor for you.

Addiction Studies Minor

Social Work Minor

Social Work Minor Program Requirements

As practitioners, social workers are trained to help people address personal and systemic barriers to optimal living. They are employed to effect positive change with individuals, families, groups, and entire communities.

As a profession, social workers frequently use their collective power to pass laws and establish policies that give more people access to community services and benefits, improving the quality of life for everyone.

Social work is the only helping profession that requires social justice advocacy as part of its professional code of ethics and is, therefore, a large workforce mandated to advance the rights of the most vulnerable in society. For more than 120 years, the social work profession in the United States has helped bend the arc of justice, making our nation a more equitable and inclusive place.

There are more than 700,000 professional social workers employed in the United States and more than three million worldwide. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics continues to identify social work as one of the fastest-growing professions in the United States.

Other government sources report there are more clinically trained social workers providing mental health and behavioral health services than any other professional discipline in the nation.

Social workers are on the front lines, helping people overcome crises. In fact, social workers are everywhere people need help navigating tough life challenges. They contribute to interdisciplinary care teams in schools, hospitals, mental health centers, nonprofits, corporations, the military—and in local, state, and federal government. Many social work professionals also own private consultation practices.

1. To prepare social work students to competently serve client systems at the micro, mezzo, and macros levels of practice, with the ability to work in varied contexts of the social work profession, and to recognize the changing nature of these contexts by incorporating new research and evidence-based techniques into their practice settings.
2. To enhance social work students' intercultural competence, particularly students' ability (1) to engage in diversity and difference in practice, and (2) to advance human rights and social, economic, and environmental justice.
3. To promote the application of social work competencies in ongoing community engagement, service to others, and social responsibility.
4. To prepare students to apply the knowledge, ethical principles, values, and competencies of a generalist practice social worker within various community settings.

Real-World Learning:

Fieldwork provides on-the-job learning experience under close supervision by a faculty member and an agency professional. A variety of agencies in the Greater Cincinnati region serve as fieldwork sites, including mental health facilities, crisis centers for domestic violence, homeless shelters, community service agencies, foster care programs, and nursing homes.

As a part of the BSW experience, students have the unique opportunity of putting what they have learned into action. Field Education sets Social Work from other helping professions, as this is not just an internship but an opportunity to work under the guidance of a Social Worker and demonstrate competency in the areas of focus while in the field.  This experience provides the student real social work experience prior to graduation and allows them to explore the populations they may want to work with in the future.  This is where you get start making social change even before you graduate.

Students have had the honor and privilege of partnering with various community partners during their time in practicum.  These community partners serve a wide variety of individuals, communities, and systems.  These partners are pivotal to social work education and we are thankful for their ongoing investment in our students and our communities.

	Be Concerned
	Brighton Center
	Catholic Charities of South West Ohio- Refugee Resettlement Services
	Cincinnati State Technical and Community College
	Community Matters
	Department of Public Advocacy Kenton County
	Easterseals Serving Greater Cincinnati
	Focus on Youth
	Glad House
	Hamilton County ESC
	Higher Educator Mentor Incentive - HEMI
	Job and Family Services - Hamilton County
	Salvation Army
	St. Vincent DePaul of Cincinnati
	Talbert House
	YWCA of Greater Cincinnati