WHAT IS A MILITARY SOCIAL WORK PROGRAM?
A military social work program, you will find, is most often a Master of Social Work (MSW) program. Here, you would study the many ways to help people solve and cope with problems. Then, you will learn to apply these concepts to support active duty personnel, veterans and their families.
If you want to utilize your counseling methods, then you need a master’s degree and a state license. You will also need 2 years of supervised field work. Earning a military social work degree may ready you to pursue this licensure. Or, at the bachelor’s level, you would be prepared to help out as a case manager.
TYPES OF ONLINE MILITARY SOCIAL WORK DEGREE PROGRAMS
Master of Social Work Military Social Work
In the online MSW at USC, you will find both an advanced standing program (37 credits) and traditional (60 credit) program. The Military Social Work track helps you learn how to meet the unique needs of active military members, veterans and their families.
Course Examples:
- Clinical Practice with the Military Family
- Clinical Practice with Service Members and Veterans
- Military and Veterans Policy and Program Management
Master of Science in Social Work (MSSW) Military Social Work Specialization
The online MSSW at the University of Louisville offers you an advanced standing (30 credit) program and a regular (60 credit) program. Here, you would complete an advanced field practicum in an approved military social work placement.
Course Examples:
- Military Social Work
- Mental Health
- Psychopathology
Master of Social Work
The online MSW at Simmons allows you to meld social justice values with a strong emphasis on field education. Here, you will find full time, part time, and accelerated options. You can choose from courses of study in child and family, mental health and addictions, as well as health and aging.
Course Examples:
- Social Policy
- Human Behavior
- Advanced Clinical Practice
MSW Specialty
Usually, you will find military social work to be an area of emphasis within broader MSW programs. At the most basic, you will study specific ways to assess and support this vital group. This can mean you could study military culture in order to understand specific issues of concern:
- Support for stressed military personnel facing deployment
- Anxiety of active duty and veterans upon their return home
- Physical, mental and psycho social issues of service members and veterans
- Assisting service members find health and career services
- Counseling for military families
- Helping to provide links to resources (career, financial, housing and benefits)
- Stressors for active duty, guard, reserve and veteran groups
- Post traumatic stress
In many schools, you will see two types of programs: (1) traditional or general, (2) advanced standing. You will find that advanced standing MSW programs often entail about 30 to 37 credits. This is right for you if you have a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW). As such, you will skip the basic courses. Instead, your classes will cover clinical upper level content. As such, your classes will be shorter, though you will complete a practicum in your area of emphasis.
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WHAT DO MILITARY SOCIAL WORK DEGREE COURSES LOOK LIKE?
Before we talk curriculum, it’s important to know what kind of program you’re looking for.
- Are you new to social work?
- Do you already have a BSW?
- Would you prefer to study addictions, aging, mental health or the needs of children?
In general MSW Programs, you will often need to complete 60 to 65 credits. In this case, you will be building a foundation, as the courses cater to non social work students. You will still need a bachelor’s degree to enroll, but it doesn’t need to be a BSW.
In such programs, you will complete two parts plus fieldwork. Firstly, you’ll take foundation courses. Secondly, you will take advanced practice courses. You will often take a wide range of courses in human behavior and social justice. In these courses, you will touch on how to assess and work with a wide variety of people.
After this part of the program, you will likely take higher level, clinical classes. In these, you may get into leadership and management themes in social work. You may, for instance, study ethics, diagnosis and assessment. In some schools, this is the point where you choose a direction.
In advanced practice classes, you would cover how to intervene when faced with a problem. As a result, you taking these classes may expand your skills. If you choose a direction, it may be a useful way to leverage your interests. Your interest, for example, might be addiction, domestic abuse, or policy advocacy.
Some common courses include:
Clinical Practice with the Military Family: This type of class may help you understand the family life cycle for military families. How the demands and stressors of military culture affect dynamics. For instance, how they cope with the deployment of a parent, spouse or child.
Clinical Practice with Service Members and Veterans: Here, you may study active duty, retired and deployed service members and veterans. What are their needs? How to deal with health, mental and psychosocial issues. It may pay attention to themes like combat trauma, stigma and mental health therapy.
Field Education Internship: Apply what you learned in real settings. It’s a part of all the programs below although each school specifies the number of hours and location.
Substance Use and Use Disorders: In this course, you will learn to prevent, identify, and provide specialty appropriate interventions for patients who use drugs.
Intro to Family Therapy: Learn various therapeutic modalities in family therapy. You would discuss indirect methods for initiating and sustaining change in family systems.
Mental Health: This course will help you identify, understand, and respond to signs of addictions and mental illnesses.
Trauma and Interpersonal Violence: Learn how to focus on the social forces, prevalence, dynamics, types, effects and interventions specific to trauma and interpersonal violence.
Social Change: In this course, you will gain an understanding of how society changes through social movements and how these movements form and evolve over time.
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO EARN A MILITARY SOCIAL WORK DEGREE?
If you are a full time student, it may take 2 years or less to earn an online MSW in military social work. To get to this point, you will need to first earn a bachelor’s degree.
Some BSW programs could take you 4 years to complete. You could also attend a school (e.g. Simmons University) that offers a 3+1 program. In that case, you could roll the BSW and MSW degrees into 4 years.
MILITARY SOCIAL WORK DEGREE PROGRAM EXAMPLES
| School | # of Credits Required | Start Dates | Minimum Months to Complete |
| Northcentral University | 36 | Multiple | 24 |
| Simmons | 65 | September | 12 to 16 |
| University of Southern California | 35 | Multiple | 12 |
HOW MUCH DOES AN ONLINE MILITARY SOCIAL WORK DEGREE PROGRAM COST?
What you will pay for an online military social work degree depends on several factors. One is where you live. In state tuition for a social work degree will cost you $7,170. For out of state tuition, you could pay $32,748.
The other factor you need to consider is how many credits you have to complete. Many schools charge by a per credit rate while others may charge a flat fee for the course. If you are paying per credit, then the fewer credits you need to complete, the fewer you need to pay for. Sometimes, you can reduce costs through eligible transfer credits.
| School | # of Credits Required | Cost Per Credit | Total Tuition Cost |
| University of Southern California | 37 | $1,863 | $68,931 |
| Northcentral University | 36 | $2,163(per course) | $25,956 |
| University of Louisville | 30 | $714 | $21,420 |
TOP SCHOOLS FOR MILITARY SOCIAL WORK DEGREE ONLINE PROGRAMS
As per Data USA, you can see, there were over 794 schools that offer social work degrees or programs. From those schools, you will find there were 58,326 social work degrees awarded to students. The majority of these, you will find, were degrees from MSW programs.
| School | 2021 Degrees awarded | 2023/24 Tuition (out of state unless *) |
| University of Southern California | 1,081 | $68,237* |
| Rutgers University New Brunswick | 784 | $36,001 |
| The University of Texas at Arlington | 985 | $29,660 |
| Fordham University | 1,058 | $61,992* |
| New York University | 555 | $60,438* |
| Aurora University | 712 | $28,220* |
| Wayne State University | 454 | $30,419 |
| Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis | 617 | $33,717 |
| CUNY Hunter College | 661 | $15,332 |
| Columbia University in the City of New York | 501 | $69,045* |
Estimated for full time, beginning undergrad students
CHOOSING AN ACCREDITED MILITARY SOCIAL WORK DEGREE ONLINE PROGRAM
There are two main reasons you are wise to look for an accredited online military social work degree. The first speaks to your program’s quality. The second fact you need to consider revolves around licensure.
Regionally accredited schools, you will find, may also have programs that are CSWE accredited. The Council on Social Work Education (or CSWE) is a national association. It has a Commission on Accreditation. This, you should know, is the sole accrediting agency for social work education in the U.S.
Did you know that as a policy and standards setter, the CSWE has criteria which a school must meet? This, you will find, includes the types of courses and skills in a curriculum. Overall, you will find, they conduct a stringent peer review of each social work program to check for compliance.
Candidacy, or the review, you will find, takes about three years. It does not guarantee accreditation, you should know. However, once accredited, you can rest ‘reasonably assured’ of the program’s quality. That said, your school must reaffirm its status every few years. This means maintaining or improving itself.
The CSWE, you will find, only accredits programs at the bachelor’s and master’s levels. You can find a directory on their website. This is a great way to check where your choice schools stand. It is something for you to keep in mind, since this relates to the second point, licensure.
You may have gathered that social work is a regulated field. As such, you will find that each state has policies about licensure. Yet, there is one rule of thumb per the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB). To pursue a license, you will usually need to earn your degree from a CSWE accredited program.
CAREERS WITH A MILITARY SOCIAL WORK DEGREE
There are a variety of exciting career paths you can pursue with a military social work degree. For entry level roles like case worker and mental health assistant, you can expect to need a BSW degree. Clinical roles will require you to have an MSW and possible state license.