Celebrating 90 years of leadership and looking toward its centennial, the School of Social Work is forging a dynamic curriculum and a research and service agenda that is both national and global in its vision and cross-disciplinary in its commitment to problem solving.
“I think there are large issues that our School is particularly poised to take on, both because of our size and strength and because we are located at an intellectually rich research university,” Dean Laura Lein states. “Social work is becoming more world-focused, both as a profession and in its research on social problems. So our challenge is: how do we become a more globalized educational institution ourselves? How do we sustain and expand our cross-professional training approaches to address the kinds of problems and social causes that loom large in our future? How do we project our research forward to address the new issues of this tumultuous economic and political period?”
The School is looking outward as well as inward as it conducts a year-long self-assessment, looking at such diverse topics as enrollment, integration of practice and research, planning for future faculty expertise, use of emerging technologies, and the role of field instruction.
“As a premiere leadership training program, the U-M SSW has a responsibility to develop knowledge as well as impart and apply knowledge,” declares Professor John Tropman, a member of the Strategic Thinking Task Group. “We have a special responsibility to initiate and test new ideas and applications. Some of the ideas may fail, but we can afford to pay that price. These initiatives continue to bring innovations in professional education, which have long been a U-M SSW hallmark.”
Training Tomorrow’s MSWs
Planning for the future of social work education is a three-pronged process in Lein’s view: identify future challenges, address research towards them, and train practitioners to engage with them. “Homelessness and unemployment are examples. Another focal point is the traumas caused by floods, earthquakes, and economic upheavals such as factory closings and how they affect individuals and communities,” she explains.
Lein also cites the impact of incarceration, not only on those who are incarcerated but also on their families and communities. Social work needs to engage more actively in the design of alternatives to the current prison system and in remedial work needed to repair the damage to those affected, she contends.
“More broadly, health itself has become a dominant force in the social service economy. The U-M, with its extensive hospital and health care system, presents us with a phenomenal setting in which social workers can access cross-professional training around all aspects of disease prevention, health promotion, and the integration of approaches to mental and physical health.”
Social workers make up the majority of professionals providing one-on-one mental health counseling, Tropman points out. The School must prepare them to address issues that did not exist 20 years ago. For example, medical social workers are helping patients decide among different treatment options, such as lumpectomy versus mastectomy for breast cancer, or drugs versus surgery in some cases of prostate cancer. Another emerging area is genetic counseling, as clients weigh whether or not to have children based on new information about inherited diseases.
Applications to the MSW program are extremely robust—higher than ever, Tropman reports. “Consequently, we are rich in an abundance of caring, committed, enthusiastic people who are really passionate about wanting to ‘make a difference’ and contribute to social well-being in a significant way. As a field, we need to provide them with the best tools possible and nurture their spirits with ongoing training opportunities, educational resources, and appropriate salaries.”
He is concerned that the burden of paying for higher education has shifted to the student. Although U-M has increased financial aid dramatically, graduates still leave with considerable debt. The same is true for law, medicine, and business graduates, he notes; but in the social services, it takes longer to pay off that debt.
Nonetheless, the job market for social workers is promising, Tropman says. “It’s driven by demographics: the baby boom generation of social workers is entering retirement, and the population of aging Americans is growing, presenting an ongoing need for many levels and forms of social services.”
Reaching across Disciplines
While dual degrees are an option for MSW students, they are the hallmark of Michigan’s Joint Doctoral Program in Social Work and Social Science, which draws well over a hundred applicants for nine to eleven positions each year. Graduates hold an MSW and a PhD in social work plus a PhD in one of five disciplines: anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, and sociology.
The joint degree was established in 1957 under the philosophy that social work would be strengthened by social science theory and methods, and the social sciences would benefit from the applications that social work suggests. “Bridging dual disciplines is both our strength and our challenge,” explains Professor Berit Ingersoll-Dayton, the program’s director. “We are a profession with a very applied focus. How do we develop people who are competent in the world of practice, while also able to understand the underlying social issues and conduct scientific research?”
One answer: the creation of very successful “bridging courses” (Social Work and Anthropology, Social Work and Psychology, etc.) highlighting the contributions that the fields make to each other. In addition, doctoral students representing each of the degree programs organized a series called “Conversations Across Social Disciplines.” Ingersoll-Dayton attended the workshop entitled “Ethics and Research,” in which students in social work, economics, political science, and psychology talked about the ethical issues they encountered while conducting research abroad. “For example, a $15 compensation to a research subject is nominal here but equal to a month’s salary in a developing country. Is that an incentive or a bribe?” she asks. “I was impressed by the students’ initiative in grappling with these serious issues.”
Like the dean, Ingersoll-Dayton notes the internationalization of social work and increasing educational exchanges at the master’s and doctoral levels with universities around the world. She sees a growing interest in community-based participatory action research, which engages researchers and citizens in social activism at the neighborhood level.
The economic downturn has also raised interest in issues related to poverty: a U-M doctoral student in social work and anthropology is studying the cultural and political contexts of a homeless camp in the Ann Arbor area. Another doctoral student in social work and psychology is looking at how treatment methodologies developed for soldiers suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder might be applied to people who have lost their homes and livelihood in Haiti.
“Translational research is a form of research that social workers do well,” Ingersoll-Dayton says. “It’s taking interventions that have been shown to be helpful with one population and applying them to a different population.”
And the research—international, translational, and community-based participatory action research— informs the future of social work education.
“I’m encouraged on several fronts,” Lein concludes. “We continue to attract fabulous students. We have a very strong interdisciplinary faculty that is engaged in research, teaching, and service across a spectrum of social issues, as well as committed to the social justice values that underlie our profession and discipline. And finally, our students and faculty are very engaged in the new technology and new ways of thinking that are indispensible components of an innovative education.”
—Pat Materka is a freelance writer and editor specializing in the social sciences. She also owns and operates the Ann Arbor Bed and Breakfast.