Bachelor of Social Work

A four-year professionally accredited degree (Australian Association of Social Workers accreditation applies) that trains students for statutory and community-sector practice across Melbourne's west, a region with some of the highest need for social services in the state. VU built the course around two substantial field placements (typically around 1,000 hours combined across the degree), placing students in child protection, community health, mental health and family services settings rather than leaving fieldwork to a single capstone block.

Like the rest of VU's course offering, theory units run block-mode, one subject over four weeks, though placement blocks necessarily run on the employer's schedule rather than the university's. The curriculum spends real time on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social work perspectives and on Melbourne's west specifically as a case study in structural disadvantage, which reflects VU's own catchment: a large share of its students come from the same low-SES postcodes the degree is training them to work in.

Graduates go on to registration-eligible roles in child and family services, community mental health and case management, with VU's local reputation among Melbourne's west community organisations doing a lot of the placement-to-job pipeline work.