M.A. Admissions

Master of Arts in Social Work (Children & Families)

Location: Mumbai

School: School of Social Work - Mumbai Campus

Intake: 23

Description

Children, constituting around 40% of the total population in India, are vulnerable by virtue of their young age and lack of power and position in society. Over the years the field of social work with children and families in India has changed considerably in terms of its perspectives, scope, and the diverse professional expertise needed. The emphasis has shifted from provision of child related welfare services to fulfilling child rights including economic, social, cultural, and political rights. Child participation, equity, and social justice are gaining prominence both within the State as well as civil society engagement. The Constitutional provisions in India and International Instruments pertaining to child rights requires sustained visibility especially in areas such as quality health care, educational opportunities, family strengthening, and all critical areas of child development. Besides, child protection and well-being necessitates either prevention, or mitigating all situations of violence, abuse, exploitation, and neglect that are experienced by large numbers of children in India and across the world.

While on the one hand efforts through activism and advocacy have brought to the fore the childrens’ agendas in policy making processes, the State has also likewise responded to develop newer interventions and strategies to effectively address child vulnerability and marginalization. Children (all young persons who have not completed eighteen years of age), as central to the development discourse, and as individuals having rights as citizens, is at the core of this thematic area. The Master of Arts in Social Work (Children and Families) aims to nurture and enable social work practitioners to develop sensitivity, imbibe rights-based perspective, values and ethics, learn research skills, and build competencies for effective social work intervention with children and families. Both classroom teaching and fieldwork are core components of the programme. Classroom teaching through lectures, group discussion, exercises, presentation, case illustrations, assignments, etc. aims at conceptual clarity, reflective learning, analysis, and critical thinking. Fieldwork, which complements the classroom inputs, provides the learners with an exposure to social realities, an opportunity for experiential learning, self-awareness, developing practice skills within a rights-based framework, as well as learn from, and contribute meaningfully to organizations.

The programme covers a contextualized and theoretical understanding of child and childhood, the legal and policy framework pertaining to children, understanding the concept of ‘family’ and building a critical perspective on dynamic family situations, skills for direct work with children and families, ability to design social work interventions, as well as conduct research in relevant areas. The programme endeavours to equip learners to engage in social work practice with children and families across different settings; institutional settings, community based settings, government institutions, non-government organizations, as well as learn skills for advocacy and research. The programme also strives to strengthen competencies to work towards systemic changes within formal institutions of the State and participate in interventions through State programmes. Job prospects include working in areas such as child labour, street connected children, child trafficking, community-based-centres, children's residential care institutions, school social work, juvenile justice system, adoption, foster care, sponsorship, research-based work, funding agencies, child rights-based work, and CSR projects

Distribution of Credit Hours:

Semesterwise Courses:

Note: The total number of credits, list of CBCS courses and semester-wise listing of courses is provisional, and may undergo some changes.

Fee Structure:

*Institute reserves the rights to revise the Fees Structure of programme if necessary.