Social workers entering healthcare practice often lack contextual knowledge and training to work effectively and to manage the complexities of today’s healthcare systems. The Social Work in Health Care certificate prepares BSW and MSW social workers to practice confidently and effectively in healthcare by building the contextual knowledge and top‑of‑license skills needed to deliver culturally sensitive, whole‑person care. It also strengthens their capacity to navigate complex healthcare systems and to contribute meaningfully to equity, advocacy, and policy efforts within healthcare settings.
This certificate consists of six integrated courses that build the foundational, clinical, ethical, and system-level competencies social workers need to practice effectively in today’s healthcare environments. Across topics ranging from health equity and patient populations to complex care, resilience, and ethical decision‑making, participants gain practical, top‑of‑license skills for delivering whole‑person, culturally responsive care in diverse healthcare settings.
The Social Work in Healthcare Certificate is offered through a collaboration between Boston University School of Social Work and its Center for Aging & Disability Education & Research, Rush University Department of Social Work and its Center for Health & Social Care Integration, and partners via the Coalition for Social Work and Health.
The Rush Office of Interprofessional Continuing Education hosts the following courses, making up a comprehensive certificate program. Courses can be taken individually for $200 per course. If registering for the certificate, all six courses can be taken for the cost of 5 ($1,000). For questions, please email CE_office@rush.edu.
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Course 1. Introduction to Healthcare & Health Equity
- Discuss health, healthcare, health literacy and health equity in the United States.
- Increase knowledge of the roles and responsibilities of social workers in healthcare
- Increase awareness of social determinants of health and how they impact the health of individuals, families and communities.
- Describe the six major government healthcare programs, Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income
- Describe the history of telehealth and outline relevant considerations for current social work practice in healthcare
- Identify policy barriers that affect access to healthcare.
- Review multiple types of advance directives.
Faculty: Dede Sparks, LMSW, FNAP, Zinal Agnihotri, LCSW, Bonnie Ewald, MACredits offered: CEU – 5.00
Click here to view Introduction to Healthcare & Health Equity
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Course 2. Frameworks, Treatment Modalities, and Social Work Skills
- Describe the foundational components of engagement and their application to building rapport with patients across healthcare settings.
- Outline considerations for comprehensive social work assessment of psychosocial needs across healthcare settings.
- Apply the key components of social work frameworks and treatment modalities to healthcare social work.
- Discuss the impact of patient values, beliefs, culture, and experiences on the therapeutic relationship in healthcare.
- Review the concepts of cultural humility, intersectionality, oppression, and trauma as they relate to working with patients in healthcare settings.
Faculty: Eve Escalante, MSW, LCSWCredits offered: CEU – 5.00
Click here to view Frameworks, Treatment Modalities, and Social Work Skills
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Course 3. Patient Populations & Healthcare Settings
- Discuss the common roles of social work in a variety of healthcare settings
- Examine the impact of social work and care coordination with multiple patient populations and healthcare settings.
- Identify common challenges faced by individuals within different patient populations.
- Recommend best practices that social workers can employ with a variety of patient populations across healthcare settings.
- Illustrate ways to implement person-centered and trauma-informed care with a variety of patient populations and settings.
Faculty: Eve Escalante, MSW, LCSWCredits offered: CEU – 5.00
Click here to view Patient Populations & Healthcare Settings
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Course 4. Social Work and Complex Care
- Identify how integrating social work into healthcare increases positive outcomes for individuals, families and communities.
- Recognize the need for comprehensive healthcare to include assessment and interventions that address an individual’s social context.
- Increase awareness of the potential impact chronic illness has on individuals, families, and communities.
- Discuss the roles and responsibilities of social workers on integrated behavioral health teams.
- Examine social work roles and responsibilities in hospice and palliative care.
Faculty: Dede Sparks, LMSW, FNAP, Teresa Moro, PhD, AM, LSWCredits offered: CEU 5.00
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Course 5. Patient, Caregiver, and Clinician Resilience
- Increase awareness of how social determinants of health, including racism and discrimination, impact resilience in healthcare
- Describe compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, secondary trauma, burnout, trauma mastery and trauma stewardship
- Identify personal and systemic stressors for people living with an acute, chronic or terminal illness.
- Increase knowledge of assessment and intervention tools focused on building sustainable resilience.
- Identify challenges faced by diverse caregivers and give examples of caregiver resilience.
- Explore how creating an interprofessional collaborative culture impacts provider resilience.
- Identify the principal foundations of supervision, including clinical supervision, as it is used in the field of social work.
- Identify at least three evidence- based, non-pharmaceutical interventions that can support whole-person health and reduce distress.
Faculty: Dede Sparks, LMSW, FNAP, Teresa Moro, PhD, AM, LSW, Eve Escalante, MSW, LCSW, Alyssa McFadden, LSW, LPMT, MSW, MT-BCCredits offered: CEU – 5.00
Click here to view Patient, Caregiver, and Clinician Resilience
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Course 6. Ethical Considerations in Health Social Work
- Differentiate core bioethical principles (autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice) and connect them to foundational social work values.
- Apply the NASW Code of Ethics to common healthcare dilemmas, including informed consent, confidentiality, and justice-related concerns.
- Identify ethical documentation practices in medical records, including the use of minimum necessary disclosure and protection of client privacy.
- Examine ethical frameworks for resource allocation during public health crises (e.g., ventilator scarcity) and the social work role in promoting fairness and equity.
- Identify strategies for balancing cultural values with patient autonomy to support person-centered care.
Faculty: Arden O’Donnell, PhD, MPH, LICSW, APHSW-CCredits offered: CEU – 4.00
Ethical Considerations in Health Social Work course coming soon
In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by Boston University School of Social Work and Rush University Medical Center. Rush University Medical Center is Jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) to provide continuing medical education for the healthcare team.
As a Jointly Accredited Organization, Rush University Medical Center is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved continuing education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved under this program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. Social workers completing each course on this page receive the listed amount of general continuing education CEU credits per course.
For general questions or connections regarding this program, please contact swich@rush.edu.