Testimony of

Robin S. Mama, Ph.D.

Professor and Dean

School of Social Work

Monmouth University

Before the

Committee on Education and Labor

Subcommittee on Healthy Families and Communities hearing

"Caring for the Vulnerable: The State of Social Work in America"

July 29, 2008

Thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony for this important
hearing. My remarks are focused on undergraduate social work education.
I will generalize some of my comments to baccalaureate social work
education, giving some specific examples from my experience at Monmouth
University. I began teaching at Monmouth in social work in 1992, became
the BSW Program Director in 1998 (when we added a master of social work
program to our curriculum), became the Chair of the Department and MSW
Program Director in 2004, and I am now the Dean of the School of Social
Work which was just created on July 1, 2008.

Monmouth University has had a Bachelor of Social Work program since 1977
and we added a Master of Social Work program to our curriculum in 1998.
We are very typical of a small to medium size baccalaureate social work
program. Currently, we average 100 to110 BSW students in our program.

There are over 400 Bachelor of Social Work programs in the United
States. Some BSW programs stand alone in a department that is often
combined with sociology, anthropology and/or criminal justice. Some BSW
programs (like ours at Monmouth) are in a School of Social Work or a
Department of Social Work which also offers a Master of Social Work
program. Fewer are in Schools of Social Work that offer the BSW, the MSW
and the Ph.D. in Social Work.

All undergraduate social work programs draw heavily from content in the
liberal arts. Students are usually required to complete courses in
Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Economics, Political Science,
Biology, and Mathematics, along with History, English and Literature.

All undergraduate social work programs are generalist in their focus.
Students in BSW programs do not concentrate in any area of practice or
theoretical focus, as is common in MSW programs. BSW students are taught
to be able to work in many areas of practice, whether it is casework or
case management, group work, community practice or even research and
policy. And they should be able to work in any field of practice, be it
gerontology, mental health, child welfare, criminal justice, etc.

The undergraduate social work curriculum introduces students to human
behavior (the life to death sequences of events and milestones that all
individuals go through), they are taught to assess clients, how to
interview them, and then how to form an intervention plan with the
client for their treatment. Students then look to evaluate how well
their interventions worked, engaging in both practice and program
evaluations. Students learn to make these assessments at the individual
level (micro), with families (mezzo) and with communities (macro). They
use a variety of skills in making assessments and in planning for
treatment or for an intervention. A key component to these assessments
is learning systems theory which helps the students see all of the
factors involved in a client's situation. Another component is to take a
strengths perspective to all assessments, looking specifically for
strengths of the individual first, and deficiencies second.

Critical to the BSW curriculum is the field internship, where students
are placed in social service agencies to learn the day to day aspects of
social service delivery. At Monmouth, our BSW students complete a 30
hour volunteer experience in the sophomore year, a 100 hour internship
in the junior year, and a 450 hour internship in the senior year. These
internships are always supervised by a licensed social worker at the
master's level, and these agency supervisors often take a course in
supervision and field that many social work programs offer. For example,
we run a SIFI course -- Supervision in Field Instruction -- for all our
new internship supervisors.

The field internship is the place where academia meets practice. It is
the applied aspect of social work, and as such is the vehicle that
allows students to grow personally and professionally. A baccalaureate
student usually knows they made the right choice of profession when they
begin their field internships. It is sometimes the case that students
get hired by their field agencies upon graduation from their BSW
program. For a social service agency that can hire their student intern,
their investment into that student over the course of the academic year
is very beneficial, as they know their new employee before they start
work, and that person is already oriented to the agency and its culture.

Not all BSW students go right to work however. Our experience at
Monmouth is that about 80% of our students go right on to graduate
education, usually the Master of Social Work. The other 20% go into
employment.

The advantage of going straight into an MSW program comes from the
ability of a BSW graduate of an accredited program to apply for Advanced
Standing in a number of MSW programs in the US. Advanced Standing
programs allow accredited BSW graduates who meet admissions requirements
to move into the 2^nd^ year of graduate work. This means that the MSW
degree is completed in one year, rather than the 2 years it normally
takes for someone who enters an MSW program without a BSW degree (if the
coursework is done on a full-time basis of 15 credits/semester).

This is an important feature of BSW -- MSW education, as it indicates
that the senior year of the BSW program theoretically is equivalent to
the first year of graduate education and that prepared BSW graduates
have the knowledge base and the skills to skip one year of graduate
school. From my experience, properly prepared BSW graduates can move
into graduate level education without a problem, and can then spend
their year in graduate school refining their skills and deepening their
knowledge.

The first year of most MSW programs contain "foundation" courses, like
Social Welfare Policy, Research, Human Behavior and the Social
Environment and usually several practice courses like Individuals and
Families, Group work, etc. Students also complete first year
internships. At Monmouth, our students in the MSW program take their
classes concurrently with their field internship, and complete 500 hours
of field work in the first year of the program. Two days of the week are
spent in class and three days are spent in the field.

In the second year of the MSW curriculum students choose a
concentration, where they focus their academic work and their internship
in a more specific area of social work practice. Almost all MSW programs
offer at least two concentrations; some offer more depending on the size
of the School or University. At Monmouth, we have two concentrations:
Clinical Practice with Families and Children and the other is
International and Community Development. The latter concentration is the
only one of its kind in the US in a social work program. The ICD
concentration allows students to go overseas in the spring semester of
their final year to complete an 8 -- 10 week internship in an NGO or
government agency. We have internships currently in Ghana, Bangladesh,
Southern India, Mexico, Chile, and Hong Kong. Both concentrations
require another 500 hours of field internship.

The Master of Social Work is the terminal degree in the social work
profession, meaning that you do not need a Ph.D. to practice as a social
worker and to receive third-party reimbursement for your clinical work.
However, you do need a license. Licensure for social workers is required
in all 50 states, and all 50 have varying requirements to obtain a
license to practice social work. Each state differs on the naming of
their licenses and not all states offer reciprocity to social workers
who want to move their license from say New Jersey to Florida or to
Wisconsin. Some states require a re-test, others require verification of
clinical course work.

In New Jersey, there are two social work licenses and one certification
(the CSW, the LSW, and the LCSW). If you graduate with a BSW and go
right to work, you apply for your CSW -- or Certification in Social
Work. There is no test for this certification, you need only to submit
proof of your graduation from an accredited undergraduate social work
program and pay the fee to the State.

When a student completes the MSW, they can then take a test for their
LSW -- the License in Social Work. Any student at the MSW level should
apply for their LSW. If you want to specialize in clinical social work
and receive 3^rd^ party reimbursement for your services (from Medicare,
Medicaid, HMO's etc), then you have to take an additional test and work
(with your LSW) under the supervision of another social worker who has
the License in Clinical Social Work (LCSW) for approximately 2,000 hours
to qualify for the LCSW license.

Those social workers who desire the Ph.D. or DSW (Doctorate in Social
Work) usually pursue doctoral work in order to enter the academic world.
It is increasingly a requirement at Colleges and Universities for
tenure-line faculty to hold a Ph.D. in their discipline in order to
teach and to be conferred with tenure.

Strengths of a BSW degree:

1.  BSW graduates have generalist skills and knowledge, which allow them
    to work in many facets of social work.

2.  These skills are portable -- they are not tied to a specific job or
    function, but can be taken wherever the graduate goes and are
    applicable to a number of fields of practice.

3.  BSW graduates are idealistic and enthusiastic -- they definitely
    want to "change the world." This idealism often helps social service
    agencies because social work interns allow agencies and their staff
    to remember their own idealism and many times can help agencies see
    their situations in a new light and can bring about needed change
    and renewed enthusiasm.

4.  BSW graduates are at an advantage in a workplace, because they are
    taught systems theory, and learn to see "the whole picture." They
    work well with professionals from other disciplines because they can
    see everyone's role, see how all roles fit together, and with their
    interpersonal skills can help to mediate difficult situations.

Challenges for undergraduate social work education:

1.  Recruitment is the biggest challenge facing undergraduate social
    work programs. Many people (especially parents) are under the
    impression that social workers only help the poor and take children
    away from families. They also have the impression that social
    workers do not make livable salaries. All academic social work
    programs work hard to negate these impressions, but until society at
    large begins to change their opinion, this will be difficult. Public
    education on what social work is, and what we do as professionals is
    essential.

2.  Ensuring cultural awareness and sensitivity can also be a challenge,
    depending on where the BSW program is located and who the students
    are. We need more bi- and tri-lingual social workers. And we need
    students to develop cultural awareness for all the clients and
    agencies that they might come into contact with.

3.  Ensuring that social work as a program stays vibrant and is
    respected at the College or University level can also be a challenge
    to programs. This is an applied, working discipline that does not
    often garner large research grants, or large donations, and there
    are times when its usefulness to the larger University can be
    questioned.