Accreditation

The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) is the accrediting body for social work education programs in the United States. For Master of Social Work (MSW) programs, CSWE has established specific accreditation standards that programs must meet.

Accreditation is a process designed to ensure that the education provided by institutions of higher learning meet acceptable levels of quality. For schools of social work, accreditation is provided by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), based on Educational Policies and Accreditation Standards (EPAS). CSWE specifies eligibility criteria, including program mission and goals, explicit curriculum, implicit curriculum (learning environment) and assessment. 

Our MSW was designed to help meet the eligibility requirements for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS) and Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) examination to obtain licensure. The MSW program provides a pathway to licensure, but does not satisfy all requirements for licensure upon completion of the program.

The USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work was first accredited in 1922 by the Association of Training Schools for Professional Social Workers (later the American Association of Schools of Social Work), a precursor of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). Since that time, the school has been continuously reaffirmed for accreditation with the exception of one period of conditional status from November 1993 to November 1994.

Programs are scheduled for reaffirmation of accreditation every eight years; at which time the school community engages in a process of examining and analyzing where the program currently is and where it would like to go.

The self-study document created in 2017 and posted here describes the current state and future direction of the program.

Licensure Requirements

Requirements for licensure, including levels of licensure, vary by state and students should review the USC Licensure and Certifications site for state-specific MSW course requirements and restrictions. Students interested in pursuing licensure should also contact the licensing board for the state in which they hope to become licensed to determine specific requirements for licensure, including any requirements that are beyond the scope of the MSW program.