Welcome

The School of Social Work is celebrating 75 years of offering graduate education at Louisiana State University. Accredited by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), our fundamental goal is for each of our graduates to use the knowledge and skills learned in the School of Social Work to contribute to our communities through the competent and compassionate practice of social work. Our MSW students learn in many settings: in lively classroom discussion, in hands-on experience in agencies, beyond campus boundaries through distance education or working closely with faculty on research or community projects. The School of Social Work's 2012 LMSW passing rate for first time test takers was 86% with the state average being 63% and a national average of 84%. The 2012 LCSW passing rate for our alumni was 89% with a 74% state average and a 77% national average. Our doctoral graduates make valuable contributions to communities through teaching, research and policy analysis.

Empowering Communities

We actively join community agencies in partnerships to address issues that affect the quality of life in our state. In the past five years, for example, we have served over 65 state and local agencies through program evaluation, training, and consultation. Our students contribute over 96,000 service hours to community agencies around the state each year through field internship assignments.

Changing Lives
Faculty, staff and students of the School address community issues about which people care deeply, such as school violence, child maltreatment, children in poverty, and truancy. We have active research projects testing promising, new interventions in areas such as child abuse prevention, juvenile justice reform, truancy prevention, substance abuse intervention and services for the elderly.

Why Research

• We believe our research activities enable professional social workers to better prevent and treat individual, family, and community problems.


• We believe research and evaluation provide necessary information and guidance to improve the effectiveness of human service organizations.


• We believe through our research we can discover better ways to improve the lives of people and allow them to reach their highest potential in life.