Smith College School for Social Work

The Smith College School for Social Work is a professional school within Smith College that provides graduate social work education to students around the world. In its nearly century-long history, the school has educated approximately 7000 clinical social workers, including many leading social work intellectuals and trailblazers such as Bertha Capen Reynolds, Florence Hollis, and Lydia Rapoport, all of whom have been enshrined as eminent pioneers of the field. The school is ranked 16th in the US News and World Report ranking of graduate programs in social work.HistorySmith College School for Social Work originated from an emergency course given in the Summer of 1918-1919 to prepare social workers for service in military hospitals treating soldiers with “shell shock” returning from the First World War. Civilian psychiatric hospitals were already using social workers to assist physicians in obtaining patients’ social histories, considered a necessary ingredient for sound diagnosis, and to aid the patients in their “social adjustment” back to their communities after release from care. The Smith College course was the first formal training program for social workers to become trained as “psychiatric social workers,” specializing in social psychiatry.