Spirituality and Social Work

With Dr. Anthony Nicotera and Dr. Ed Canda

Online Post-Master's Certificate Program

This nationally recognized Post-Master’s certificate program explores contemporary issues in spirituality and social work. It examines the importance of spirituality and its diverse religious and nonreligious expressions for clients and their communities. It provides an ethically appropriate, spiritually sensitive, and culturally humble approach to clinical practice, human service administration, and community work.  Specific spiritually sensitive methods and practices will be highlighted. Spirituality will be viewed as a valuable dimension in holistic bio-psycho-social-spiritual assessment and the treatment planning process. The program utilizes didactic and experiential components, which will include role playing, narratives, storytelling, and other pragmatic methods. The program is co-taught by highly experienced and award-winning social work educators. It was named #7 in the Top 25 Social Work Certificate Courses Online for 2021. Participants from across the country and around the world are welcome. Continuing education credits are available in both the United States and Canada.

Program Highlights

• Intersection of spirituality, mysticism, and religion
• Relational spirituality, community wellbeing, and ecojustice
• The intersection of mind and body in holistic, integrative, and artistically creative helping practices
• Spiritual approaches to promoting wholeness and transformation of self
• The intersection between spirituality, religion, and culture
• Spirituality in human development across the life cycle
• The contribution of spirituality to social change and social policy
• Spiritual assessment and transformative practices, such as meditation, mindfulness, ritual, forgiveness, and community reconciliation
• Applications of spiritually sensitive practice in various fields, such as mental health, health, youth and families, and gerontology
• Linkage of local, national, and global contexts for spiritually sensitive practice
• Emphasis on strengths, resilience, empowerment, and restorative justice
• Case studies

This certificate requires the completion of 18 two-hour online sessions over the course of two semesters. Assignments include weekly readings and journals, several small projects, and a final learning assessment in the form of a brief course presentation.

Pre-requisites:

• Master’s degree in social work or an allied helping profession, such as psychological counseling, nursing, pastoral counseling, or education.
• Affirmation of a code of professional ethics associated with social work or an allied helping profession.
• Proficiency in English for graduate level reading, writing, and speaking.
• It is also recommended that applicants have at least one-year post-master’s level supervised practice experience.

The program runs online on Tuesdays from 6:30–8:30pm ET over the course of the 2023-24 academic year. 

Fall 2023

• September 12, 19
• October 10, 17, 24
• November 7, 14
• December 5, 12

Spring 2024

• January 23
• February 6, 13, 20, 27
• March 5, 12, 19
• April 2

Anthony Nicotera, JD, DSW, LCSW

Dr. Nicotera serves as the course director and primary instructor. He has his law and social work degrees and has over 30 years of spiritual and clinical counseling and teaching experience, as well as nonprofit leadership and management experience. He serves as Assistant Professor of Social Work at Seton Hall University and Adjunct Assistant Professor at NYU’s Silver School of Social Work. For the past 20 years, he has been teaching courses in social justice, nonviolent peacemaking, spirituality, and multi-faith leadership as part of NYU’s Silver School of Social Work and Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life. He recently published a chapter on the history of spirituality, religion, and social work in the text Spirituality and Mental Health Practice: A Narrative Casebook (Routledge, 2020).

Edward R. Canda, MA, MSW, PhD

Dr. Canda serves as the Educational Consultant for the Spirituality and Social Work certificate program. He is a leading innovator, educator, and researcher in spiritually sensitive social work. He has taught courses on this topic for more than 30 years and has about 200 publications and 250 presentations nationally and internationally. Dr. Canda's research and service address connections between cultural diversity, spirituality, and transilience in relation to health, mental health, and disabilities.

He founded the Society for Spirituality and Social Work (SSSW) in 1990. In 2013, Dr. Canda received the Council on Social Work Education's Significant Lifetime Achievement Award for innovations on spirituality through scholarship and education. In 2021, he received the SSSW’s Inaugural Edward Canda Award in appreciation for his leadership. His most widely cited books are Spiritual Diversity in Social Work Practice (Canda and Furman 1999/2010/ and with H. Canda 2020, Oxford University Press) and Contemporary Human Behavior Theory (Robbins, Chatterjee, and Canda, 1998/2006/2012/ and with Leibowitz 2019, Pearson).

Dr. Canda is Professor Emeritus and Coordinator of the Spiritual Diversity Initiative in the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas where he was on faculty from 1989-2019. For three years prior, he was on the faculty of the University of Iowa. He has also been a Visiting Researcher or Professor in South Korea at Sungkyunkwan University and the Academy for Korean Studies and in Japan at Ritsumeikan, Doshisha, and Kansai Universities. He is currently a research project consultant on spiritually sensitive social work at Palacky University in the Czech Republic. Dr. Canda has an M.A. in Religious Studies (University of Denver, 1979) and MSW and PhD degrees in social work (The Ohio State University, 1982 and 1986).

36 NYSED and ASWB/ACE Continuing Education Contact Hours will be awarded for this program.

55 jurisdictions accept ACE-approved provider CE contact hours. ACE is not an approved Continuing Education provider in the states of New York (though NYU Silver is NYSED CE approved in NYS) and West Virginia, unless the event is outside of West VA. ACE only approves individual courses in New Jersey, though NYU Silver is CSWE-accredited and therefore accepted for licensed NJ professionals. Here is a full list of statutes related to social work CE.

The application for Fall 2023 is now closed. Please check back for the 2024 application and schedule information.

The cost of this certificate program is $2,130, which includes registration and application fees and the cost of an online compendium of readings.

Available discounts include:

• 25% discount for NYU Silver School of Social Work MSW/DSW/PhD alumni
  
• 25% discount for practicum instructors currently working with NYU Silver School of Social Work graduate students.
• 15% discount for applicants who have already completed one NYU Silver certificate program.
• 50% discount for veterans.

Please note: discounts may not be combined.

Payment Policy: Upon acceptance into the program, a $250 non-refundable deposit is required to secure your place. This deposit is applied to the total cost of tuition. Tuition payments may be broken up by semester. The total cost of each semester is due before the start of each semester.