Now more than ever compassionate and engaged social workers are needed to help improve the life-chances and wellbeing of people and to combat societal inequality.

Contemporary social workers need contemporary skills to respond meaningfully to social problems. Our Master of Social Work (Qualifying) has been redesigned after direct industry feedback to reflect current and emerging practice trends in the profession.

The newly updated course with specialisation options will give you key skills in ethical, innovative and collaborative social work practice.

The new curriculum will equip you with advanced knowledge of social work research principles and methods. It also includes 1,000 hours of supervised professional placement, and students are encouraged to take part in additional project and research work with communities and industry.

You will graduate as a creative and ethical communicator who respectfully uses knowledge to meet the needs of diverse social work client groups, communities and organisations. You will be able to respond to social justice and human rights challenges in ways that are culturally sensitive, principled, and effective.

Learning Outcomes

Initiate improvements to services, policies and professional accountability in social work through the innovative application of critical analysis, research and culturally relevant knowledge.
Maximise ways of decolonising social work knowledge, frameworks and practices to address inequality and injustice in ways that promote social sustainability policies and goals.
Construct communication strategies that can respond to the needs and capacities of diverse social work client groups, communities, and organisations.
Propose leadership approaches for social work that are collaborative, cooperative and useful in micro, meso and macro contexts.
Develop ethical social work research and practice-based responses to local, national and global social justice and human rights challenges.
Design practical solutions that can contribute to the decolonising agenda in social work in a sustainable way by using creative, entrepreneurial, and relational approaches.

Career outcomes

The skills and expertise our Social Work graduates gain equips them for a diverse range of rewarding careers, including:

child safety practitioner
social worker
project manager
youth worker
mental health practitioner
researcher
policy analyst and advisor

community development worker
migrant and refugee settlement workers
case manager
drug and alcohol counsellor
palliative care social worker
relationships counsellor
disability advocate.