Organizers said that the new certificate program will train masters of social work students to understand and address the root causes of health inequities, enabling them to integrate core principles of public health into both their clinical and macro social work practices. Graphic courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The Boston College School of Social Work is expanding its suite of academic offerings to include a new certificate program in social work and public health.
Organizers said that the program will train MSW students to understand and address the root causes of health inequities, enabling them to integrate core principles of public health into both their clinical and macro social work practices.
Students who complete the program will be prepared to work for local and state health departments, healthcare organizations, and community agencies that focus on public health, health equity, health education, and advocacy, they said.聽
鈥淭his program provides many of the public health fundamentals that a student would get in a master of public health program,鈥� said Professor Summer Hawkins, who created the certificate in collaboration with Associate Professor Erika Sabbath. 鈥淔or students who are on the fence between going for an MSW or an MPH degree, it offers some of the benefits of an MPH in addition to the field experience of social work, the licensure, and the skill set, as well as the knowledge to be able to work in a public health setting.鈥�
SM经典合集SSW Professor Summer Hawkins.
At the start of the fall semester, Social Work and Public Health will officially become SM经典合集SSW鈥檚 latest certificate program in a subject-specific area of social work. Students may complete up to two certificates, which include programs in trauma, child welfare, and Black leadership, among many others.
The certificate program in Social Work and Public Health will require students to complete three courses: Human Behavior in the Social Environment, Public Health Social Work, and Social Determinants of Health and Mental Health.聽
Human Behavior in the Social Environment, a foundational course that all master鈥檚 students are required to take, looks at how people grow and function throughout life, with a focus on the bigger systems that affect them鈥攕uch as family, community, and society.
Public Health Social Work gives students a unique perspective on social work from the field of public health by focusing on health promotion, prevention, and disparities at the population-level.聽
As part of the course, students pick a personal behavior they want to change鈥攇etting more sleep, say, or reducing their caffeine intake鈥攁nd try to modify it over several weeks. Hawkins, who teaches this course in the fall, said that this experience helps students understand how challenging it is to change behavior while giving them a window into what clients and populations face. Students then reflect on this process and consider interventions and strategies to support behavior change in their client populations.
SM经典合集SSW Associate Professor Erika Sabbath.
For their final assignment, students choose a health problem they are passionate about, often related to their field placement or future goals. Then they explore evidence-based interventions aimed at preventing that problem before it occurs.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a very data driven, evidence-based approach to understand how we can change population health,鈥� said Hawkins, who became SM经典合集SSW鈥檚 first social epidemiologist when she joined the faculty in 2012.
Social Determinants of Health and Mental Health, which Sabbath teaches in the spring, focuses on the social and environmental factors that affect health outcomes. Each week, students learn how a different issue, such as racism, the environment, or housing, impacts health across communities and explore interventions to help address these problems in the populations they care about.
For a semester-long assignment, students will pick a population they hope to work with and complete a three-part project:
- Identify and analyze a major health outcome affecting that population using epidemiologic concepts.
- Examine various risk factors beyond individual behavior, including social and policy-level factors.
- Propose two different interventions using distinct approaches to address the health outcome.
Hawkins and Sabbath said that students who complete these two courses will have a leg up in a competitive job market.聽
The skills they hone in their social work and public health courses complement each other, Sabbath said, with their social work courses providing knowledge in program planning, implementation, and participant retention, and their public health courses providing skills in prevention, evaluation design, and data analysis.聽
鈥淭he fields of public health and social work share a commitment to working toward health equity and reducing disparities,鈥� said Sabbath, who, like Hawkins, is a social epidemiologist. 鈥淎 public health perspective complements the social work approach through a focus on principles of prevention and health promotion, and through creation of programs, policies, and practices to intervene on upstream determinants of population health and wellbeing.鈥�
Hawkins brings guest speakers into her class to show students how social workers can apply their skills in public health settings. One of her future guests will be Victor Ortiz, who earned an MSW and now directs the Office of Problem Gambling Services for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
鈥淲hat鈥檚 so exciting,鈥� said Hawkins, 鈥渋s seeing social workers using their skills in public health settings.鈥�
