SWCOS Director Dick Cook, left, and SWCOS Community Advisory Board Chair Sue Wolman, center, present Jesse Harris, right, with a small token of their appreciation for all that Harris has done for SWCOS the last 15 years.

SWCOS CELEBRATES ITS 15TH BIRTHDAY!

It started out with an idea written on a napkin. Fifteen years later, the idea of former School of Social Work Dean Jesse J. Harris has grown into the School of Social Work's Community Outreach Service (SWCOS)--an innovative program to help people in the Baltimore community with a variety of pressing social issues.

SWCOS marked its fifteenth year with a gala celebration March 6 at the Jim Rouse Visionary Center located at Baltimore's American Visionary Art Museum.

The gala celebrated, not only the excellent work SWCOS does in the community, but also the man who started it, Jesse Harris. After introductory remarks by Marc Steiner, Dean Richard Barth, and SWCOS Director Dick Cook, the over 300 people in attendance gave Jesse Harris a rousing standing ovation for his dedication and support
to SWCOS.

SWCOS—an agency within the School—demonstrates the critical interrelationships among practice, education, training for social work professionals. Its mission is to create innovative models of education and service that strengthen underserved individuals, families, and communities in Baltimore and across that state while as the same time providing graduate level social work students opportunities for hands-on field experience that can make a difference in the agencies which they serve. Unlike other social outreach agencies, however, SWCOS staff includes foundation, clinical, and management and community organization students who complete their internships, using each other as mutual support and peer consultant systems.

During its 15 years, SWCOS has educated more than 700 students—including a growing cadre of returning Peace Corps volunteers—for careers that aim to identify and build capacities of individuals, families, communities, and community-based organization to problem solve and devise inclusive, creative socially-just solutions. Additionally, for students involved in SWCOS internships, the goal is to strengthen the profession to embrace a stronger role in the solution of social problems.

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