After months of pupil organizing, the Silver Faculty of Social Work introduced that it intends to scale back its subject studying requirement for graduate college students by the autumn 2024 semester.
Grasp’s college students at NYU’s Silver Faculty of Social Work are slated to spend 300 fewer hours within the subject by the autumn 2024 semester, based on an announcement by Silver dean Michael Lindsey on the faculty’s commencement ceremony on Might 17. The deliberate discount comes after months of advocacy from college students, who’ve been preventing to reduce the variety of hours they spend of their subject positions and safe wages for his or her subject hours.
“While you tackle the problem to dismantle methods, it’s actually troublesome however obligatory work requiring persistence, steadfastness and a never-quit angle,” Lindsey mentioned on the ceremony. “Different college students engaged in advocacy to scale back subject placement hours and methods to make placements extra reasonably priced to college students. These are targets that all of us share, even when in some instances there hasn’t at all times been whole settlement on the trail to get there.”
The change would decrease Silver’s subject studying requirement for Grasp of Social Work college students from 1,200 to 900 hours, the minimal set by the Council on Social Work Schooling, the nationwide accreditation physique for social work faculties.
MSW college students in NYU’s chapter of Fee for Placements, a nationwide group calling for social work college students to be paid wages for his or her subject hours, have been advocating for Silver to scale back its required placement hours to the CSWE minimal since September. The group has met with the varsity’s administration a number of occasions to debate the location program’s design, as they really feel it locations a monetary and emotional burden on college students.
Silver’s present subject studying requirement has usually been criticized by college students, a few of whom have mentioned that the companies the place they full their placement hours rely upon unpaid labor to keep away from the price of hiring extra paid workers. Many college students have been pressured to max out their pupil loans or work part-time jobs along with their subject studying to afford the varsity’s $54,000 per yr tuition.
Discipline studying is an integral a part of a social work training for each graduate and undergraduate college students, and usually consists of studying to supply social providers to purchasers in several communities and settings, relying on the general public or nonprofit group the place college students are assigned. Undergraduate college students at NYU have a smaller subject requirement than grasp’s college students, at 550 hours.
Whereas MSW levels should not required for all social work positions, they’re usually wanted to work superior jobs in fields equivalent to well being care, administration and training. Bachelor’s levels in social work are sometimes sufficient to safe entry-level positions, however these jobs might be difficult to advance in and not using a greater stage of training.
Many members of P4P at NYU are MSW college students, a level that takes two years to finish in Silver’s full-time program and as much as 4 years within the part-time monitor. There are round 400 incoming MSW college students on the faculty every year, with the two-year program being the commonest course of research.
Full-time grasp’s college students at NYU are positioned in certainly one of 600 associate companies for his or her subject placements, and work of their positions round 21 hours per week. College students are not often paid for this work, though what they do is just like the work of paid professionals, and don’t get to decide on the place they’re positioned.
In a Might 19 e-mail to the Silver group, Lindsey mentioned that it’ll take months of planning and dealing with college students, college, associate companies and different faculties in New York Metropolis to scale back the sector studying requirement to the CSWE minimal whereas preserving the usual of subject studying on the faculty.
Lindsey additionally famous that in February, the varsity created a $50,000 fund to cowl onboarding charges at social work companies, equivalent to prices for required background checks, for college kids with demonstrated want beginning within the fall of 2024. The fund may also be used to reimburse college students with want for onboarding prices paid this previous educational yr.
Planning for the change in placement hours is already underway, and the varsity will work with associate companies to ensure their subject studying wants are nonetheless met, based on Silver spokesperson Sheryl Huggins Salomon. Huggins Salomon mentioned that many faculties of social work within the New York Metropolis space additionally at the moment require MSW college students to finish 1,200 hours within the subject, however that this isn’t true of colleges in different components of New York state.
“Aligning the practicum hours from the present 1,200 to 900 hours is among the many methods that we are going to proceed to evolve as a premiere faculty of social work,” Huggins Solomon mentioned. “We selected this second to make the announcement as a result of we need to be each proactive and conscious of our college students and perceive that aligning our practicum hours will permit a higher variety of college students to attain their objective of acquiring a NYU Silver training.”
Final month, P4P at NYU took half within the group’s Nationwide Week of Motion, becoming a member of P4P chapters at Columbia College, Hunter Faculty and Stony Brook College in protesting the sector hour requirement and uncompensated placement work. P4P at NYU is asking that the college pay college students wages for his or her subject hours, arguing that it has the cash to take action.
Huggins Salomon didn’t handle a query about whether or not the college has the funds to pay social work college students for subject studying hours.
P4P at NYU determined to cease assembly with Silver administration in December, citing that the varsity had not made any “significant” progress towards assembly their calls for.
The group mentioned that the deliberate change to required placement hours at Silver is simply the start, and that it’ll proceed to battle for social work college students to be paid for his or her subject work in an announcement supplied by Leann Beard, a member of P4P at NYU.
“A discount of subject hours from 1,200 to the 900 hours required by the Council on Social Work Schooling is a large victory, and wouldn’t have occurred with out P4P and all the pupil physique demanding it,” the assertion reads. “We should maintain NYU accountable to truly implementing this hours alignment in a well timed and equitable method.”
Correction, Might 25: A earlier model of this text misquoted Silver directors as referring to subject studying as subject work. The article has been up to date to mirror the correction and WSN regrets the error.
Contact Carmo Moniz at [email protected].