The advanced MSW curriculum provides in-depth preparation in advanced social work practice in an area of concentration. A concentration is defined as a chosen methods area in combination with a specialization in a particular population, field, or social problem focus. The advanced curriculum offers four primary intervention methods areas: interpersonal/ direct practice, administrative practice, policy practice, and community-centered integrative practice. Each of the four concentrations offers advanced methods courses that will provide in-depth preparation. In addition, each concentration offers cross-cutting electives available to students across concentration areas. After consulting with their faculty adviser, practicum coordinator, and Student Services advisers, students choose an area of concentration for their advanced year of study. Areas of concentration might include, for example, policy practice with a specialization in health care, interpersonal/direct practice with a focus on children and MASTER OF SOCIAL WORK PROGRAM 24 univers i t y of washington school o f social work families, administration with a specialization in mental health settings, or community-centered integrative practice with a focus on global/local inequalities.

Students enter the second year with an individualized learning plan (developed by the winter quarter of their foundation year) that sets out a coherent program of advanced study. Identified in the learning plan are the advanced methods area, a platform policy/services course, an advanced field practicum, and proposed choices for methods courses. (Dual methods concentrations are sometimes approved, but are rare because of the challenge of identifying appropriate practicum opportunities and because of class scheduling conflicts. Such plans require approval by the program director and director of practicum.)

A minimum program of study will include:

• Two Advanced Methods (6 credits) courses in the student’s primary method area. Dual methods concentrations may be proposed with the approval of the practicum coordinator and MSW program director. The advanced methods courses should be consistent with both the student’s learning plan and practicum. 
• One Platform Policy/Services course (3 credits), which should be consistent with the student’s specialization as identified in his or her learning plan. Platform/policy services courses are intended to provide an overview of policies, regulations/laws, service and institutional contexts, ethical principles, practice issues, and inequalities and development issues in key social work practice areas. These courses have a dual commitment to critical analyses of historic and contemporary inequities and to envisioning the conditions, processes, and actions that constitute socially just policies and services to redress inequalities. Typically, policy/services courses are offered to support the following specialization areas: health, mental health, children and families, global/local practice, and multigenerational practice.
• Elective course offerings (9 credits). Elective courses include courses related to the student’s concentration and specialization areas, and may include advanced HBSE and theory courses, but their primary focus will be on the development of knowledge and skills for intervention. (Students may take one elective course —up to 3 credits- -from another department.) Elective courses may range from 1 to 3 credits. The degree of students’ choice in selection of the elective courses will depend to some extent on their choice of area of professional preparation. School Social Work Certification, for example, and the Child Welfare Training and Advancement Program (CWTAP) require that specific courses be taken.
• Advanced Practicum (18 credits). The advanced practicum will be consistent with the learning plan and align with the student’s concentration method area and area of specialization.

Advanced Year Concentrations (MSW Day Program)

Interpersonal/Direct Social Work Practice

Interpersonal/Direct social work shares with all social work practice the goal of enhancement and maintenance of psychosocial functioning of individuals, families and small groups. Interpersonal/Direct social work practice is the professional application of social work theory and methods to the treatment and prevention of psychosocial distress and impairment. It is based on knowledge of one or more theories of human development wit hin a psychosocial context. The perspective of person-in-environment is central to clinical social work practice. Interpersonal/Direct social work includes interventions directed to interpersonal interactions, intra-psychic dynamics, end-of-life care, and management issues.

Interpersonal/Direct social work services consist of assessment, diagnosis, treatment, including psychotherapy and counseling with individuals, dyads, families, or small groups, case management, client-centered advocacy, consultation, resource identification and management, networking and collaboration, and evaluation. Clinical social workers work in a variety of settings, including but by no means limited to hospitals and other health services, mental health agencies, family services agencies, elder care services, work sites, corrections, and schools. (Based on the definition of “Clinical Social Work”, NASW, Board of Directors, 1984 and the Encyclopedia of Social Work, 1995.)

Typically, several practice specializations are available in the Interpersonal/Direct Practice Concentration. Currently, these are:

Interpersonal/direct social work practice courses may include:

• Advanced Health Care Practice: Prevention, Primary Care, and Emergency Department Settings
• Advanced Health Care Practice: Inpatient, Hospice, and Long-Term Care Settings
• Multigenerational Advanced Practice with Older Adults and Their Families
• Social Work Practice in Community Mental Health
• Advanced Practice with Diverse Children and Families: Child Mental Health
• Advanced Practice with Diverse Children and Families: Child Welfare
• Clinical Social Work with Individuals: Theory and Practice

Community Social Work Practice

This concentration promotes a socially just, community-based empowerment model of practice, focusing particularly on communities that are disadvantaged by local and global institutions and processes. Working at the nexus of multiple social systems, community social work practice embraces a critical-dialogic stance. Core elements of this integrative approach include: (1) a focus on community and locality as the natural site for social work practice; (2) assuming that individual, family, and community issues are always interconnected and tied to larger social structural factors; (3) knowing and understanding the connections between daily social work practice and the structural dynamics of society (history, economy, politics, and culture) both locally and globally; (4) a focus on critical contextualization, both an analysis of power and inequality and knowledge of the social change theories, at multiple system levels, and connecting action to knowledge; and (5) an emphasis on collaborative and collective processes and on building on community strengths (Fisher and Karger, Social Work and Community in a Private World, 2000). The community practice concentration builds on and extends the School’s long-standing tradition of social justice practice in a multiethnic and globalized society.

Community social work practice courses may include:

• Critical Empowerment Practice with Multiethnic Communities
• Praxis of Intergroup Dialogue 
• Critical Empowerment Practice with Refugees

Administration

Broadly speaking, administration encompasses the process of transforming social policy into social services through “a cooperative and coordinated endeavor, involving all members of an organization, each of whom contributes variously to the processes or goals formulation, planning, implementation, change and evaluation” (Patti, Social Welfare Administration, 1983). More specifically, social work administration is a practice intervention used by social workers to achieve service effectiveness and organizational change. As an intervention, administration requires the systematic and purposeful application of skills, knowledge, and values. Social work administration is a client-centered approach to management that stresses the skills and knowledge required to improve a program’s service effectiveness as well as staff morale.

Administration practice courses may include:

• Financial Management of Human Service Programs
• Leadership and Program Development

Policy Practice

Policy practice is focused on analyzing policies and associated political processes and influencing the direction of policy to effect social change. Social welfare policy practice pays particular attention to those policies that create or perpetuate injustices confronted by disenfranchised and oppressed groups. Policy practitioners possess skills in defining and measuring social problems, devising and analyzing policy alternatives, influencing policy decisions, and evaluating the impact of policies.

Policy practice courses may include:

• Concepts and Methods of Policy Analysis
• Policy Processes, Institutions, and Influences

Advanced Practicum

Advanced Practicum (Soc W 525, 18 credits) is required of all students. The focus of this practicum must be consistent with the student’s concentration area and with his or her individualized learning plan.

The advanced practicum, an integral part of the advanced curricula, is determined by the Practicum Coordinating Committee. A practicum coordinator interviews each student and reviews the student’s learning plan and a questionnaire completed by the student that pertains to student areas of interest as well as previous experience in social work. The committee then selects a placement for each student that meets curriculum and accreditation requirements.