Upon completion, learners will receive a certificate from Penn’s prestigious School of Social Policy & Practice demonstrating that they possess advanced training to support diverse patients and families coping with cancer. Specifically, upon completion of the certificate program:

• Learners will build expertise in work with diverse patient populations across the life cycle at all stages of the cancer continuum, including anticipating cancer risk, coping with diagnosis and treatment, survivorship, recurrence, end-of life planning, and bereavement.
• Learners will acquire advanced knowledge and skills in supervision, teaching, program development and evaluation, and leadership in oncology social work settings.
• With mentorship from program leadership and alumni, learners will develop skills to design and implement an applied demonstration, or capstone, project in an area of oncology social work practice.
• Learners will expand their professional network with program instructors, their cohort and program alumni, and relevant professional organizations.

All learners will design a capstone project to be completed in the final months of the program. This offers learners the opportunity to develop a demonstration project integrating their learning and ongoing clinical practice. Projects must be approved by the Program Directors. The capstone project enables practicing social workers to tailor their professional development to the needs of their institutions and patients.

Examples include starting a new support program with a community partner, creating an educational module for newly diagnosed patients, building a resource guide for a rare diagnosis, or developing and delivering a webinar on a topic of interest.