Bachelor of Social Work

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CMU’s Bachelor of Social Work degree is an innovative four-year program of professional studies that is grounded in CMU’s distinctives of interdisciplinarity with a focus on community-building, peace-making, and eco-literacy taught by faculty within and outside of the social work program.

Community-building

Recognizing that communities are at the heart of understanding our bonds with and responsibilities to each other. You can experience this in courses like SWRK-3400 Critical Praxis and Anti-Oppressive Social Work Practice for Groups, Organizations and Communities. Our Field Education program further anchors this experience in community with the expectation that all students complete their first placement in a community-based organization that focuses on building community and advocating for justice.

Peace-making

A core Anabaptist principle that is lived out through finding ways to strengthen connections, repair and rebuild broken relationships, and engage in reconciliation. This is facilitated by additional requirements that draw from areas such as Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies (PACTS), and courses like PCTS-2262 Conflict, Faith, and Community.

Eco-literacy

An imperative for all living in today’s world, with special recognition that the impacts of climate change are felt most strongly by the marginalized, and a hope for a future that is grounded in an ethics of care beyond a merely human centered world. Students will take courses in Environmental Studies or Environmental Biology and may take a social work elective like SWRK-3300 Environmental Justice and Social Work Practice where students regularly held class in the neighbouring Assiniboine Forest. Students are encouraged to take knowledge from diverse areas and apply them in new and innovative ways to addressing challenges of a world impacted by social upheaval and climate change and imagine what green social work could be.

Through classroom learning and real-world experience in field placement settings, we equip students to be compassionate, caring and effective social workers. We prepare students with the practical skills and theoretical knowledge to enter the profession of social work with the goal of addressing oppression, pursuing social justice, and facilitating change at multiple levels with individuals and families, communities and broader systems. This degree intentionally crosses disciplinary boundaries, ensuring that our students are challenged to think outside of conventional approaches to social work. This includes the celebration of Indigenous and non-Western ideas of helping and promoting healing as important inclusions to the social work curriculum.

With all of CMU, the social work program is on a journey of reconciliation with our Indigenous relations. Social work students are expected to explore the harms done by the social work profession and by the Christian church and are invited to walk this journey with us. Students will take a course on Indigenous Peoples in Canada, and will further explore Indigenous experiences and ways of helping through courses like SWRK 3210 Indigenous People and Social Work Practice and SWRK-2200 Decolonizing Human Behaviour in the Social Environment I.

Our degree is designed to reflect both the ethos of CMU as well as the need for developing a strong Bachelor of Social Work degree.

The CMU Bachelor of Social Work degree has Pre-Accreditation status with the Canadian Association for Social Work Education (CASWE). This is an important first step towards full accreditation and ensures that our graduates have the same benefits and opportunities for work and future master’s-level study as those from fully accredited programs.

Our program’s dedication to principles that embody a social work grounded in these distinctives is also illustrated in our mission, vision, and commitments.

Small University • Big Opportunities

"CMU is uniquely placed to draw from a range of disciplines—theology, business, peace, community development, psychology—to ground its social work program. This, coupled with a baked-in orientation towards social justice, service, and community building, means CMU BSW grads will have something needed and distinctive to offer the social services world in Winnipeg and Manitoba."

As CMU is a member of Universities Canada, students can be assured that the program will meet the highest regulatory requirements for work in a range of contexts across Canada.

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• Bachelor of Social Work
• Reasons to Study Social Work at CMU
• Tuition & Fees
• Admission Requirements
• Program Requirements
• Faculty
• Careers in Social Work
• Field Education
• Mission, Vision, and Commitments
• Learning Outcomes
• Apply Now