College Diploma - Social Service Worker (SW)

Social Service Workers build and maintain relationships with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities; recognize and respond to individual, group, organizational and community injustices and inequalities; and provide direct services and/or a bridging to resources to improve the quality of peoples’ lives at the personal, cultural, and system levels. Social Service Workers provide these services in a range of residential and community settings while working with other professionals such as child and youth workers, addiction counsellors, teachers, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses, and doctors.

The program is four semesters in length with classroom-based courses in the first three semesters and a block placement in the final semester. Applied learning activities are infused into the classroom-based courses such as:

• Practicing interviewing and group facilitation skills for the purposes of engagement, assessment, goal planning and social support with individuals, groups, organizations, and communities • Working in teams to plan on and off-campus events, fundraising campaigns, educational awareness days, and promotion of social change • Conducting research to challenge forms of oppression as well as to design/develop/improve social service programs and • Participating in self-care strategies for personal and professional well-being