The Katherine A. Kendall Institute for International Social Work Education
The Katherine A. Kendall Institute for International Social Work Education (Kendall Institute) strives to prepare educators, researchers, students, and practitioners for an increasingly global community through its programs and initiatives. Established with contributions to an endowment in honor of international social work icon Dr. Katherine A. Kendall, the Kendall Institute promotes standards of excellence for international social work to integrate related concepts into social work curricula and seeks to enrich perspectives, understandings, collaboration, and networking within the social work community.
About Katherine A. Kendall
Katherine A. Kendall, a world-renowned icon of social work education, was actively involved in the development of social work education in the United States. In 1950 she became executive secretary of the American Association of Schools of Social Work (AASSW). She was involved in the complex negotiations that merged AASSW and other social work governing bodies into the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), which is recognized as the sole accrediting body for social work education in the United States. Throughout her career Kendall was able to merge her global outlook with her passion for social work education. In 2004, she founded and endowed the Kendall Institute to promote and enhance the social work profession's international perspective.
History and Goals
CSWE established the Kendall Institute in 2004 with an endowment from the Katherine A. Kendall Fund. Its overall mission, shaped by the vision of international social work icon Katherine A. Kendall, is to foster the mainstream development of international content in social work education and to increase the cross-organizational collaboration in project development as well as research and data collection and dissemination. Specifically, it promotes the implementation of programs and initiatives within the global social work education community. These programs and initiatives will prepare practitioners and researchers with the appropriate knowledge and requisite skills for practice in an increasingly interdependent global community.
Advisory Board
The programmatic policy-making body for the Kendall Institute is the Advisory Board. Board members are experts from the international social work community and represent the International Association of Schools of Social Work, the Canadian Association for Social Work Education, and other partnerships for international education. A content expert for each of the Institute’s program priorities is appointed to give ongoing consultation on the topic and to further develop the Institute’s programs. The three programmatic priorities selected by the Advisory Board are disaster response, migration, and human rights.
2024-2025 Kendall Advisory Board Roster