Program Overview

The Master of Social Work Program at California State University, Dominguez Hills is strategically located to focus on the diverse social service needs and problems particular to the South Bay area of Los Angeles County, a large metropolitan area, populated by a wide range of socially and culturally diverse people.

Because of the diversity of the various ethnic groups and cultures, the program will prepare social work students for contextually competent social work practice, inclusive of issues of culture, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, class and gender differences, religion and the effects of bias, prejudice, and institutionalized racism. These issues and concerns often obscure helping efforts if they are not appropriately recognized and dealt with in practice and in social policy development and implementation. Thus, the program aims at increasing students’ understanding of the underlying causes resulting from intersecting effects of prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping and teaches ways of identifying strategies and interventions for addressing these concerns and problems in social work practice.

The CSUDH MSW program has set several goals in the preparation of professional social workers applying cultural and contextually competent practice. The program aspires to prepare graduates to:

1. Engage in autonomous professionally competent practices that are culturally appropriate interventions tailored to enhance the well-being of individuals, families, and the successful functioning of groups, organizations and communities in diverse urban environments.
2. Be able and willing to promote economic and social justice through the practice of culturally and contextually competent interventions at all levels, including policy practice, advocacy and direct intervention.
3. Be analytically skilled to identify and understand the destructive patterns of institutionalized poverty, discrimination and oppression using scientifically valid research methodologies and critical analyses to identify, assess and change aspects of competing economic, political and social systems, as well as harmful interactions among and between them.
4. Engage in community based research on social issues, focusing on those variables affecting individuals, families, groups, organizations and communities in diverse pluralistic urban environments that can be directly applied to the education of students and reflect evidence based culturally and contextually competent social work intervention.
5. Establish and maintain professional relationships that enable cooperation and collaboration with members of the social service community that mitigate/ameliorate complex social challenges through shared leadership and partnerships.
6. Be committed to the profession of social work that includes maintaining the highest ethical standards embodied in professional ethics, development of a life-long-learning philosophy based on ongoing evaluations of one’s own practices informed by regular access to and consumption of appropriate scholarly research.

The Program as a comprehensive entity aspires to:

1. Contribute to the social work profession, locally, within the state and nationally through collaborating with social service agencies to promote their endeavors through implementation of contextually culturally competent programs, evaluation of practice and research.

These goals are accomplished the following program objectives.

Upon completion of the MSW program at California State University, Dominguez Hills students will be able to:

1.1. Engage in autonomous professional practice.

1.2. Identify the concepts of critical race theory and intersectionality applied to case situations.

1.3. Discuss contextually and culturally competent practice in the appropriate setting with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities within diverse and complex urban settings.

2.1. Discuss the roles of advocacy and policy practices as integral components of professional social work practice using a conceptual paradigm that identifies causal links between personal troubles, and/or symptoms of individuals and families with social structures.

3.1. Apply appropriate and valid research methods and other models of critical analysis to identify, assess and address causes and consequences of institutional behaviors affecting individuals, families and groups within diverse and complex urban communities.

4.1. Produce and disseminate scholarly work documenting and assessing effective approaches addressing relationships between structural inequalities in social, economic and environmental sectors and their implications and consequences for client systems of all sizes within diverse and complex urban communities.

5.1. Practice professional relationships with client systems of all sizes using a Community Practice focus.

5.2. Identify and discuss an array of problem solving models that utilize a range of social work roles as contextually appropriate.

5.3. Apply the knowledge and related practice techniques of two theories appropriately adapted as contextually and culturally competent practice with client systems appropriate to the student’s specialization within the Community Practice concentration.

5.4. Demonstrate skills in building cooperation and collaboration with and among systems of all sizes to impact positive social changes in diverse and complex urban communities.

5.5. Identify and describe skills required to work within and amongst organizations in a variety of roles, profiting from supervision, consultation and collaboration for the purposes of benefiting individuals, families, groups, organizations and communities in diverse and complex urban areas.

6.1. Understand and articulate the underlying philosophies and ensuing codes of the highest ethical standards embodied in professional ethics and adhere to these standards in all aspects of their professional practices.

6.2. Develop capacity to effectively engage in the systematic evaluations of their practice.

6.3. Demonstrate and articulate the value and necessity of lifelong learning as an essential component of professional competence

6.4 Participate in the social work profession, locally, within the state and nationally through collaborating with social service agencies to promote their endeavors through implementation of contextually and culturally competent programs, evaluation of practice and research.