For more than thirty years Kean University has been preparing social workers and engaging in research and community service for the people of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Accredited by the Council on Social Work Education, the MSW program prepares graduates for licensed professional practice in the diverse fields of social work, including clinical practice, administration and community organization. With a total enrollment of approximately one hundred graduate students and small class sizes, the MSW program offers students the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of individual attention to their learning needs.
Mission
The mission of the MSW Program is to prepare advanced social work practitioners of diverse backgrounds with advanced knowledge and skills to respond to the needs of individuals, families, communities, and organizations of New Jersey and its neighboring states, as well as to address issues at the national level.
The Master of Social Work Program at Kean University is designed to prepare social workers with an advanced generalist background to enable them to enhance the problem solving capacities of people, link client systems of various types and sizes with resources that contribute to their development and the improvement of social policy in general. The MSW Program seeks to prepare students for professional development and lifelong learning in the social work profession. The curriculum provides for the attainment of critical thinking, communication, creativity and computation skills which are general to many settings. Additionally, the program seeks to prepare students to begin and/or enhance their participation as informed citizens committed to social justice and to carry out societally beneficial roles. The curriculum will provide students with the knowledge, values, processes and skills which make up the professional foundation and advanced expertise enabling them to work within and through varying sizes and types of systems to provide direct and indirect service to clients.
Advanced generalist practice, the program's second year concentration, is effective practice providing knowledge and skills for autonomous work with systems of all types and sizes from the interpersonal to the national/international with strong emphasis on practice evaluation. Advanced generalist social work is built on a strong liberal arts foundation that is integrated with advanced professional knowledge, values and ethics for the understanding of persons within their immediate as well as a global environment. Grounded in social work values that uphold the dignity of all individuals and groups regardless of their differences, and in theories for understanding of individuals, groups, communities and social institutions and the transactions therein, advanced generalist practice allows for the utilization of a holistic systems/ecological approach to problem solving which openly and selectively employs theories and techniques for intervention at all levels of functioning. It employs the four generalist practice roles of enabler, broker, advocate, and coordinator and adds four additional roles (counselor/clinician, supervisor, manager, and administrator) which give it breadth and depth.