Developing a cultural eye and mapping mental health and health competence in social work curricula: a community-engaged competency framework

Social work education is grounded in a mandate for competent and culturally relevant practice. Yet there is a lack of literature describing the curricular development processes that center culture and community, particularly as it relates to Master of Social Work (MSW) specializations. This paper elucidates a community-engaged 'top down, bottom up' organizational change process of competency development, implementation, evaluation, and monitoring within a mental health and health specialization (MHH) in an MSW program. The systematic description of the eleven steps of the curriculum reform is presented in a figure and include key strategies for engaging with community, faculty and students. The MHH competence framework is illustrated in an infographic that maps onto curriculum and course components. Following implementation of the new MHH competency framework, graduates reported significant increases in key skills such as understanding and integrating sociocultural factors in MHH and 91% noted their increased ability to deliver interventions to promote the social determinants of health. Given the dynamic nature of competence within community-engaged social work education, strategies for ongoing dialogue and monitoring are provided.