Bart Grossman

Visionary leader and educator in social work

Bart Grossman received his MS in 1969 and his Ph.D. in 1981 from the University of Michigan, following his BA from the City College of New York. Throughout his distinguished 30-year career as the Director of Field Education at the University of California, Berkeley, in the School of Social Welfare, he established himself as an outstanding practitioner and educator. He is a visionary with a strong commitment to social justice and leadership skills.

Grossman developed one of the top field education programs in the country, including agencies in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. Building partnerships and collaboration are themes of his career. Preparing students for professional practice requires close collaboration with public and nonprofit agencies in the community, agency field instructors, and direct work with students to integrate classroom teaching and practice experiences. Local field education consortia (collaborative relationships among universities) were then grown from only a few in the early nineties to over 100 by the year 2000.

In the 1980s, Grossman noted the absence of field contributions to the program schedule of the Council of Social Work Education (CSWE), the accrediting body for all U.S. social work programs, in its Annual Program Meeting (APM). He led other distinguished field educators to advance field-based contributions by launching an annual Field Education Symposium, which was then incorporated into all subsequent APM agendas.

Grossman also co-founded the North American Network of Field Educators and Directors (NANFED) in 1980. It steered field education into the new millennium. He gained approval for an annual Heart of Social Work Award to honor field instructors from around the country for their excellence.

Grossman was instrumental in establishing the program that trains public child welfare workers in California. He proposed a Bay Area coalition of 10 counties, which later expanded statewide and sparked the California Social Work Education Center (CalSWEC) with him as its first director. It continues today with a network of social work programs funded by Title IV-E of the federal Social Security Act. All 58 county social services directors and a growing number of state universities with MSW programs are involved, providing enriched classroom content and relevant internships, with significant student scholarships. This program has produced over 10,000 social workers educated and trained to work with California's vulnerable foster youth and their families.

From 2002 to the present, Grossman has served as Academic Consultant to Help for Children, a global charity based in the finance sector. They have made grants totaling over $10M to over 50 California agencies, for the prevention and treatment of child abuse.