NAU-Yuma social work program a step closer to accreditation
NAU-Yuma’s social work program is set to get a seal of approval from the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), Commission on Accreditation.
Northern Arizona University-Yuma program director Bill Pederson said that the program will have its final site visit with a CSWE commissioner on Sept. 19, with full accreditation hopefully to be in place by February. The accreditation will be retroactive to August 2015
“This is a milestone for the NAU Yuma Social Work Program, Yuma and Imperial counties,” Pederson said in a news release. “We will be the first and only accredited social work program in the United States that focuses on U.S. Mexico border issues and populations.”
The program has a unique curriculum, Pederson said, that is grounded in CSWE’s core competencies, but the courses students take are infused with U.S. Mexico border content. Students also are provided with several service learning opportunities in the majority of their classes, including one which allows them to intern as student social workers in a local school district.
The program has provided more than $1 million in service learning and community change projects in Yuma and Imperial counties, Pederson said, and 28 of its students have presented research papers at national and international conferences.
In April, the NAU-Yuma Social Work Student Association received the Rodney Mather Service Award for its two-year Human Trafficking Awareness Project in Yuma and Imperial counties, Pederson said.
“Most recently, the NAUYuma social work students were determined to have achieved the best mastery of the CSWE Core Competencies, beating out the ASU and the NAU mountain campus social work programs.”
Pederson said the majority of the students in the program are Hispanic, bilingual English Spanish, and first generation college students.
“Yet, in spite of their challenges, we have had several Gold Ax winners and two Distinguished Seniors,” he said. “At least one-third of our graduates have gone on to obtain their MSW and two alumni are now adjunct professors in the NAU Yuma Social Work Program.”