Social Work

Program Overview

As the oldest school of social work in Canada, the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto has been on the cutting edge of education, policy, research, and practice in social work for over 100 years. The Faculty offers a professional/academic program of study leading to a Master of Social Work (MSW) and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree.

MSW

Human services are among the fastest growing sectors of the Canadian economy. Along with the growth is an increasing diversification of the sector, with fields of practice rising up around specific areas of need. The country as a whole will need social workers to staff new, more specialized service agencies of the future. While the notion of generic social work has a role to play in this increasingly complex environment, it is clear that graduates will also require more specific skills if they are to thrive in the new human service sector. In other words, generic social work is a necessary, but no longer sufficient preparation for practice. The overall aim of the program is therefore to produce graduates who are ready to enter the field of their choice after first receiving a thorough grounding in the knowledge, values, and skills common to all social workers. The specializations are built upon the expertise of core teaching faculty and have all been developed with the very active participation of partner agencies in each of the respective fields.

Goals

To prepare graduates:

for ethical, innovative, and effective social work practice in a diverse society;
for competent practice which integrates theory and research;
to be capable of integrating practice and policy;
to practice in specialized areas, defined by student interest, faculty expertise, and demand from the field.;
who have a generic foundation of core social work knowledge, values, and skills, applicable to all fields and methods of practice;
to practice in specialized areas, defined by student interest, faculty expertise, and demand from the field;
to work actively to promote social justice, make professional decisions, and perform professional functions that are informed by an understanding of the political context of practice.

Objectives

To prepare students for:

professional practice according to the accreditation standards of the Council on Social Work Education (CASWE);
social work practice interventions based on research evidence;
specialized practice in six identified areas:

- Children and their Families
- Gerontology
- Indigenous Trauma and Resiliency
- Mental Health and Health
- Social Justice and Diversity
- Social Service Administration
strengthening partnerships with social work agencies in areas of particular interest to the Faculty for the purposes of enriching the curriculum and producing graduates with the requisite skills to function in those agencies;
encouraging interdisciplinary linkages.

PhD

The purpose of the PhD program at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work doctoral program is to prepare students for leadership roles in social work education, research, and the community. Students are admitted to the PhD program on the bases of prior scholarly and professional achievements. Applicants who have been involved in research and who have a record of publications are rated highly for consideration for admission. These admission criteria acknowledge that the PhD in Social Work is a research degree located in a university, which emphasizes research excellence for all of its graduate programs.

Through scholarship, research, and mastery of substantive areas of study, the objectives of the program require student competence in the following:

conduct social work research using a range of paradigms and methods;
conduct research that both informs and advances social work knowledge and performance in areas of direct practice, community intervention, and policy development;
demonstrate a broad understanding of the major practice and policy issues in social welfare and the profession of social work;
substantive knowledge of a field of social work (defined by students’ research interests), which results in the articulation of important empirical questions.

Enrolment in the Faculty of Social Work entails adherence to the standards of professional behaviour for the social work profession set forth in the Social Work Code of Ethics of the Canadian Association of Social Workers.

Combined Degree Programs

Students may also be interested in:

Quick Facts

	Domestic	International
Application deadline	MSW: Fall 2025 entry 28-Nov-2024 MSW (ITR): Fall 2025 entry 15-Nov-2024 PhD: Fall 2025 entry 08-Jan-2025	MSW: Fall 2025 entry 28-Nov-2024 MSW (ITR): Fall 2025 entry 15-Nov-2024 PhD: Fall 2025 entry 08-Jan-2025
Minimum admission average	MSW: mid-B in the final year of full-time study PhD: B+	MSW: mid-B in the final year of full-time study PhD: B+
Is a supervisor identified before or after admission?	PhD: After	PhD: After
If a supervisor is identified after admission (as per question above), is admission conditional upon securing a supervisor?	PhD: No; students secure a supervisor by the end of September of Year II	PhD: No; students secure a supervisor by the end of September of Year II
Is a supervisor assigned by the graduate unit or secured by the applicant?	PhD: Student	PhD: Student
Are any standardized tests required/recommended?	MSW, MSW (ITR), PhD: N/A	MSW, MSW (ITR), PhD: N/A