Social Service Worker

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 our 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.

Building on the above knowledge and skills gained, a full-time placement in the fourth and final semester of the program provides a range of practice opportunities in a work setting (agency and location to be determined in consultation with the student, faculty, and available agency sites).

In addition, as a regulated profession in Ontario, upon having successfully completed this program you will have the necessary skills for employment as a Social Service Worker in Ontario and be eligible for membership with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Services. Please see the OCSWSSW website for more information about the profession and eligibility for membership.

Career Opportunities

• Canadian Mental Health Associations
• Hastings Centennial Manor Long-Term Care
• Associations for Community Living
• Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre
• Peterborough Aids Resource Network
• Kinark Child and Family Services
• Ontario Works
• Community Counselling and Resource Centre
• A Place Called Home
• John Howard Society
• Mon Ami Children’s Service