2013 Program Info  l  Revised Program  l  Admissions  l  Awards  l  Forms

Current Program Info:

“Please be advised that the Pre-MSW, MSW, and PhD programs are not offered via distance or on-line education. All coursework must be completed at the Fort Garry Campus.”

The Faculty has operated since 1943 and there are two different concentrations available through which students may receive M.S.W. degrees. They are addressed to the differing interests that are common within advanced social work practice and are identified in this curriculum as Social Services Administration and Social Clinical. The M.S.W. degree is fully accredited and recognized internationally as both a professional and academic qualification.

Social Services Administration Stream
The stream’s aim is to educate progressive social work managers, program evaluators, and policy analysts within the public, voluntary, and private sectors. A critical approach is used for examination of power, oppression, and resistance. Organizational theories, strategies, analyses of social service administration practice are examined. Students acquire strong analytical and practice skills in policy analysis and social service administration. Through critical review of theories, techniques, and case study applications, students learn to develop and apply different models of social service administration, planning, implementation, and the evaluation of social policies and programs.

Social Clinical Stream
This stream is based on an eco-systemic perspective, while also incorporating anti-oppressive and anti-colonial perspectives. This view provides a broad context for social work practice by emphasizing the interrelatedness of individuals, families, groups, and communities and their relationships with social institutions and cultural forces. The family unit, broadly defined, is given particular focus.

Program Description
Graduates of this program currently occupy a wide range of positions within the human services in Canada and throughout the world. While the majority of graduates work within the social service sector others have become active as politicians, scholars, senior civil servants, private consultants and are also active in a wide range of fields such as international development work and the creation of information systems.

While the program covers the core material which is essential to social work practice there has been particular attention given to issues relevant to women and the Aboriginal communities. Many graduates are Aboriginal persons and are actively involved in the creation and operation of the Aboriginal human services organizations.

Considerable attention is given to issues of educational equity. In addition to treating these matters as course content, every effort is made to ensure that people from disadvantaged groups have access to the M.S.W. program. The purpose of this initiative is to achieve equality in professional education so that no person shall be denied educational opportunities or benefits for reasons unrelated to ability. In the fulfilment of this goal the aim is to correct the conditions of disadvantage in professional education experienced by Aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities, immigrants and refugees to Canada, and persons other than Aboriginal peoples who are members of a visible minority in Canada. Educational equity means more than treating persons in the same way, it also requires special measures and the accommodation of difference.

Fields of Research
The faculty are involved with research in virtually all areas of the human services covering clinical, administrative and planning issues. A partial list of current research includes questions regarding gender, international social development, ethnicity, the justice system, services for Aboriginal people, rural and northern development, family violence, day care, issues concerning disabled persons, the immigrant experience, the development of clinical services, the political economy of the welfare state, the nature and treatment of pain, and services in child welfare.