Concentration Schedules
Apply »Community Mental Health Concentration
The Community Mental Health Concentration is guided by the Program’s mission and is dedicated to helping students gain both general and specific psychotherapy skills to be utilized in serving populations in rural and small town community settings. It is designed to provide students with advanced knowledge and skills for assessment, treatment, and evaluation with client systems in various types of public and private settings with a focus on the mental health needs of rural and small town populations. Clinical social workers are the nation's largest providers of mental health and psychotherapy services, outnumbering both psychologists and psychiatrists.
Clinical Gerontological Concentration
The Clinical Gerontological Concentration is guided by the Program's mission and is designed to help students meet the tremendous challenge and need of caring for the nations maturing population. Social workers form an important link between older adults and the services designed to help them live with independence and dignity and to achieve maximum potential during later life. Social work with older adults focuses on the physical, psychological, social, spiritual and economic aspects of daily living and may occur in any number of settings.
Addiction Studies
Substance abuse counseling has gone beyond being viewed as optional training for advanced social work practitioners and instead is fast becoming an essential part of the educational program of helping professionals. The sequence of course work offered in the Addiction Studies Concentration in the MSW Program focuses on skill building in the areas of assessment, diagnosis, treatment planning, and individual and group counseling and prepares students for future certification in drug and alcohol counseling as well as a myrid of employment opportunities in community agencies which provide a continuum of care for persons struggling with addiction problems.
Management, Community Planning, and Social Administration Concentration
The Management, Community Planning, and Social Administration Concentration is guided by the Program’s mission and is organized to prepare students to assume leadership roles in human services management, planning, and administration in public and non-profit settings in rural and small town communities. Social work administrators are proactive leaders in public and private agencies that provide services to clients. Many elements of this area of social work practice are common to administration in other organizations. Also required, however, is knowledge about social policy and the delivery of social services, vision for future planning, an understanding of human behavior, and commitment to social work ethics and values. Increasingly, agencies are looking for individuals with an administrative background and abilities. The capacity to work with and motivate others is key to success as a social work administrator, as are creative thinking and leadership skills.
Dual Concentration
A Dual Concentration involves completion of the practice courses in two or more concentration areas and gives the student advanced competencies in both/several areas. Advanced pratitioners who have initially gone into some area of clinical social work practice often find themselves in administrative or supervisory positions within three years of graduation and could benefit from the macro sequence of courses. This option is also suggested for students who intend to go into private clinical practice or own their own casemanagement business after graduating.
