Social work is a dynamic, changing, and challenging profession with a vast range of career opportunities for personal job satisfaction. The social work profession has its own body of knowledge, code of ethics, practice standards, credentials, state licensing and a nationwide system of undergraduate and graduate accredited educational programs. These equip the professional social worker to combine the desire to help others with the knowledge, skill and ethics needed to provide that help.
A professional social worker assists people in coping with complex interpersonal and social problems and helps to obtain the resources people need to live with dignity. At the same time, the social worker is also committed to making society more responsive to people's needs. The contemporary social worker assists people from all walks of life, with all kinds of problems, in all kinds of settings - in public agencies, in nonprofit agencies, in hospitals and clinics, in schools, in the workplace and in the community.
In confronting problems, the social worker is continually assessing, understanding, developing relationships, counseling, coordinating, mobilizing and initiating efforts to help people build their own lives while also helping the community create and deliver the services and support that people need.
All basic social work education includes courses on human behavior, family dynamics, social policy and services, social work methods, research, knowledge of community resources and how to use them, and agency field placements to develop practice skills. Special coursework and selected field placements enable students to pursue individual interests within the field of social welfare.
It is the purpose of the BASW and MSW programs in Social Work to prepare social workers for culturally competent practice with Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans, and those communities, groups, families and individuals in California who are disenfranchised, oppressed and/or marginalized. Within this special focus, the transcultural social work perspective developed by the Social Work programs promotes commitment of students, faculty and alumni to advocate for social justice, to build upon the strengths of diverse cultures, and to enhance the well-being of individuals and their communities.
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