Social Work Program - Cedarville University

http://www.cedarville.edu/academics/sw/socialwork/index.cfm

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Social Work

Cedarville University offers a Christ-centered education to students who are preparing for professional careers in Social Work. The core of the professional curriculum is integrated with biblical concepts and values. This allows students to respond to human needs from a biblical world and life view. This careful integration is essential to developing Christian social workers who are caring, committed, and competent.

The Social Work Program at Cedarville University received initial accreditation from The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) in June of 1998. CSWE reaffirmed the Program in June 2002.

The Program is part of the Department of Social Work, Criminal Justice, and Sociology.

Mission Statement

The mission of the Cedarville University Social Work Program is to prepare students to lead in serving those in need as professional generalist social workers by empowering them with the knowledge, values, and skills of the profession from a biblical worldview.

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Goals

The goal of the Social Work Program is ultimately to enable students to integrate the knowledge, values, and skills of the Social Work profession into competent practice by:

  1. Providing content about Social Work practice from a generalist perspective with client systems of various sizes and types.
  2. Preparing students to practice with the skills, values, and knowledge to practice with diverse populations at risk.
  3. Providing content about social contexts, the changing nature of those contexts, the behavior of organizations, and the dynamics of change.
  4. Preparing graduates who are aware of their responsibility to continue their professional growth and development.
  5. Preparing students to practice with populations at risk with unique discrimination and oppressive histories (with a special focus on poverty).
  6. Integrating Biblical principles throughout the curriculum so that students can appropriately integrate their faith and that of their clients into the helping relationship.
  7. Laying a foundation of core skills essential to a high caliber of Social Work practice (i.e., problem solving, listening, verbal and written communication, critical thinking).
  8. Creating an appreciation for the profession as well as an understanding of the history, personalities, and issues and events, which helped to shape it.
  9. Infusing throughout the curriculum the values and ethics that guide professional social workers in their practice.

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Objectives

Graduates of Cedarville University Baccalaureate Social Work Program will be able to:

  1. Apply critical thinking skills within the context of professional Social Work practice.
  2. Integrate Christian beliefs and values with professional social work values and ethics as set forth in the code of ethics.
  3. Practice without discrimination and with respect, knowledge, and skills related to client's age, class, color, culture, political ideology, disability, ethnicity, family structure, gender, marital status, national origin, race, religion, political and sexual orientation.
  4. Identify the issues underlying the conditions of poverty, oppression, and discrimination and apply strategies of advocacy and social change that advance social and economic justice nationally and globally.
  5. Comprehend and interpret the history of the social work practice and its contemporary structures and issues.
  6. Apply the knowledge and skills of generalist Social Work to practice with systems of all sizes and in the context of the church.
  7. Apply knowledge of bio-psycho-social-spiritual variables and use theoretical frameworks supported by empirical evidence to interpret individual development and behavior across the life span and the interaction among individuals and between individuals and families, groups, organizations, and communities.
  8. Analyze, formulate, and influence social policies.
  9. Evaluate research studies, apply research findings to practice under supervision, and evaluate their own practice interventions.
  10. Use communication skills differentially across client populations, colleagues, and communities.
  11. Utilize supervision and consultation appropriate to generalist practice.
  12. Function within the structure of organizations and service delivery systems and under supervision, seek necessary organizational change.

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Integration of Faith and Practice

A dynamic relationship exists between the Christian life and social work practice.

Christians in social work ought not to be motivated by temporal wealth, power, or security.

Christians in social work ought to examine and evaluate all human ideologies and social work theories and methods as to their consistency with the Bible, their consciences, social laws, and professional codes of ethics.

Christians in social work ought to work for the temporal and external well-being of all human beings, and for the redemption of human communities and social institutions.

Christians in social work ought to support and submit themselves to the highest standards of professional education, practice, and ethics. Christians in social work ought to use the insights of their faith in helping people, and to treat everyone as Jesus Christ would have them treated.

Taken from the North American Association of Christians in Social Work (NACSW) Code of Ethics.

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