Mental health in postgraduate social work curriculum: Review of training contents in Indian schools of social work

Training of social workers according to the changing needs of the society is important. To this end, we decided to review the adequacy of mental health training in postgraduate programme in social work. The Mental Health Care Act 2017 defines psychiatric social worker (PSW) in India to have additional higher qualification beyond post‐graduation in social work. The number of such qualified PSWs appears to be limited due to small number of institutes that offer advanced training in the country. Though, the number of available PSWs with such qualifications is rising, the manpower in proportion to the mental health needs in the country continues to remain low. It is therefore, relevant to review the quality of psychiatric social work education at postgraduate level if this level is to be considered as the desirable qualification for PSW. In this context, postgraduate social work syllabi from 71 universities including autonomous institutions were reviewed using semi‐structured assessment. The results show a lack of uniform teaching components, training methods and insufficient skill orientation towards mental health interventions. These observations suggest that curricula and training are modified with strengthening and enhancing the quality of training of mental health at post‐graduate level in Social Work.