Master of Social Work (Qualifying)

This is SCU's graduate-entry route into professional social work practice for students who already hold a bachelor's degree in an unrelated field and want to requalify rather than start an undergraduate degree from scratch. It carries the same AASW-mandated 1,000 hours of supervised placement as the undergraduate program, but compressed into a postgraduate timeframe: Field Placement I runs 400 hours (57 days) across sessions two and three of first year, and Field Placement II runs 600 hours (86 days) across sessions two and three of second year, each in a different human service organisation.

Both on-campus and online students complete the same two placements in two different fields of practice, which the university frames as deliberately building breadth of experience rather than letting students stay in one comfortable setting for the whole degree. Coursework compresses the theoretical foundations of social work (human behaviour, social policy, practice methods) into a shorter timeframe than the undergraduate degree, on the assumption that students bring existing academic maturity and often relevant life or work experience from their first degree.

Graduates qualify for AASW accreditation and can move directly into social work roles in health, child protection, mental health, and community services.