Social Work for Social Justice: Strengthening Social Work Practice through the Integration of Catholic Social Teaching

Catholic Social Teaching (CST), by virtue of its convergence with social work values and ethics, is a valuable resource for strengthening the social justice content of social work education. This paper describes how CST is complementary to the NASW Code of Ethics, foundational to the Integrative Framework (a generalist practice model), provides substance to the Core Competencies as defined by the Council on Social Work Education, and operationalizes justice in the classroom.