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A message from the Dean | The Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare

A message from the Dean

 

Welcome to the website of the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare.

Our school is the first of its kind in Israel, with a past replete with academic and professional achievements, and future still to come.  

Our school plays an integral part in the shaping of the social work profession in Israel, with impact reaching far beyond its borders. Our mission is to prepare the future generation of social workers and influence research in the area, including social policies in Israel and beyond.

The School of Social Work also influences the profession through the faculty’s research activities, which are placed at the forefront of contemporary research in broad areas of social work. This also takes place through the teaching and fieldwork training provided to the students.

asherbenariehOur research is innovative and knowledge-developing, including evaluation of treatment and training approaches, promotion of social issues and shaping all sectors of Israeli society. We are committed to training future researchers from among our students, who will become the next generation of leaders in the field and pioneers working towards new horizons. The research we promote and encourage facilitates a cross-fertilization process between the professionals in the field and our cadre of researchers.

We seek to train future social workers by applying the highest professional standards. The curricula of our various programs are up-to-date and pluralistic, where the understanding of the individual is informed by a systemic view addressing the intrapersonal level through the family, community, and societal systems. We are committed to a friendly, inspiring, challenging, and culture-sensitive environment where students are able to form and refine their own professional identities. Clearly, in order to provide the finest professional training, an environment that accepts its students and faculty with their diverse ethno-national, social and gender identities, is necessary.  Thus our students are enabled to express their otherness through teaching, training, and social activities on campus.

Our school is involved in social activism in Israel, particularly in efforts to shape the country’s social policies. The combination of training, social engagement and research which we lead promotes our profession and the specific populations we treat on both the personal and community levels, and also generates social change and affects social policies.

We are proud of our students’ extensive activities at the school and university levels, in departmental and school committees, as well as in the student association. We are also proud of their engagement in social activism through civil society organizations promoting equality and social justice in Israel.

On a personal note, as a school graduate (all three degrees), I know that studying here is a unique experience and a privileged exposure to the beauty and complexity of the world of social work. I have acquired the basic concepts of the profession and experienced the spheres of theory, research, and fieldwork. As a faculty member for over twenty years, I have always enjoyed constructive and dignifying encounters with my colleagues, and no less importantly, with my students. I feel certain that the environment which has benefitted me so greatly in my own academic career will remain with us for the foreseeable future, and will enable us to give the school community the gift of a fascinating and challenging, as well as individualized and personal, learning experience.


Prof. Asher Ben-Arieh,

Dean, Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Work