Social work students at Laurentian University are breathing a sigh of relief this week after learning their program has received a two-year accreditation by the Canadian Association of Social Work Education (CASWE).
Last fall, the accreditation body told the university to hire more social work faculty or risk losing accreditation.
Laurentian was short seven professors and two support staff members (one full-time and one part-time) in its social work program. The university has since posted these positions, and is in the process of hiring.
Mary Jolin-Lake, president of the Indigenous Social Work Student Council — LU's social work program has French, English and Indigenous streams — said she and her fellow students were excited to hear the news.
“It means we graduate from an accredited program this year,” said Jolin-Lake, who's in her fourth year of studies, and graduates this spring.
“Many of us had the whole accreditation thing hanging over our head, worrying about whether we were going to be able to register as a social worker or not.
“Once we received the news, it meant we could register, we could go on to our master's, we can go onto PhD programs and just continue our careers we had chosen to do.”
Laurentian chief of staff Alex Freedman shares in Jolin-Lake's jubilation.
“We made a commitment that we were going to do everything we could to support those programs, and did so, and the result is of course what we were looking for,” he said.
Laurentian's actions are a little disappointing, though, because they've known about the staffing shortfall in the social work program for about eight years, but haven't hired due to budget restraints, Jolin-Lake said.
“But with a little bit of pressure from the CASWE, our faculty, our students and everyone who supported us, we were able to get the funding,” she said.
The situation that arose with the social work program has prompted the university to examine its professionally-accredited programs, and make sure all of its ducks are in a row, Freedman said.
“It's forced us to look at each and every one of those programs, and make sure we're not going to be in this situation again,” he said.
