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A degree in Medical and Psychiatric Social Work offers a wide range of career opportunities across diverse sectors. Graduates can find placements in hospitals and specialized mental health institutes, as well as in public health settings and community-based mental health programmes. Opportunities also extend to educational institutions, corporate wellness initiatives, and non-governmental organizations, reflecting the expanding importance of psychosocial care. Additionally, professionals may engage in research and policy-oriented organizations or establish themselves in private practice and consultancy roles. The career scope is broad and dynamic, including roles such as Medical Social Worker, Medical Social Welfare Officer, Medical Social Service Officer, Medical Social Work Officer, Psychiatric Social Worker, Psychiatric Social Work Officer, Mental Health Social Worker, Mental Health Social Work Officer, Clinical Social Worker, Welfare Officer, Case Manager, Counsellor, Forensic Social Worker, Researcher, Health Coordinator, Faculty member, and Policy Advisor. This diversity of roles emphasizes the versatility of the field and its critical contribution to healthcare and social well-being.

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The curriculum of the Bachelors in Medical and Psychiatric Social Work is designed to build competencies in direct practice across diverse settings. The program trains students to become compassionate, skilled, and reflective professionals while working with individuals, families, and communities to promote and foster their wellbeing, health equity and justice, while anchored in dignity and professional integrity. Students are also equipped to address unworkable systems and cultural norms that contribute to illness and develop strategies and skills to transform the health of people. Students learn to design and implement context-specific interventions, advocate for patient rights, and contribute to inclusive and equitable health outcomes. Grounded in the vision of the National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions (NCAHP) Act, 2021, the program recognizes social workers as essential members of the healthcare team whose role is to narrow the gaps between health services and systems and the lived realities of people.

1 https://www.ugc.gov.in/pdfnews/1366718_Social_Work.pdf

1. To introduce social work as a practice-based profession in the health
2. To gain knowledge and information about people, behaviour, systems, contexts, cultures that influence health and illness.
3. To engage students with social realities and challenges of identity, culture, plurality and collective processes in development and health sectors.
4. To build students’ ability to critically analyse the interconnectedness of the historical, social, commercial and political determinants, policies, and programmes contributing to human well-being and development.
5. To learn skills of interventions of working together with people, communities, structures, and social systems to respond to and address inequity, marginalisation and exclusion in the health sector.
6. To develop trained cadres of social work professionals who hold competencies for liaison with health services and systems.
7. To prepare students for direct work in different health practice contexts – hospitals, health programs, and communities besides governmental and non-governmental organisations (NGO), and health movements.

Upon completion of the Undergraduate Honours program in Medical and Psychiatric Social Work, students will be able to be:

1. Proficient in applying multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary social work theories and knowledge that promotes social development and behaviour change.
2. Skilled in critical thinking and analytical reasoning to dissect information, solve problems and form well-informed judgements.
3. Appreciative of the challenges of caste, class, gender, race, tribe, ethnicity, religion, disability, age, language, sexual orientation, and its intersectionalities and develop appropriate interventions through counselling and psychotherapy, towards social inclusion, empowerment, and wellbeing of people.
4. Competent to develop context-specific and strategic, segmental and spatial
5. Demonstrate enhanced capacity for knowledge production through practice and
6. Work with government agencies, and social and development organisations and initiate social innovations.
7. Function with ethical reasoning and social consciousness, for professional decision making to protect patient rights and wellbeing in the health sector.
8. Demonstrate country specific and global competence by navigating and contributing to health social work in a changing and interconnected world.