Congratulations on earning your MSW from Palo Alto University. Here's what comes next.

About Palo Alto University's MSW Program

Palo Alto University is located in Palo Alto, California. The MSW runs 2 years (online/hybrid with in-person residencies); advanced standing in length, with online or hybrid options available. The program is in CSWE accreditation candidacy. Its clinical/direct-practice track is "Culturally Informed Behavioral Health Practice," the concentration most relevant to the LCSW path.

• Built by Palo Alto University, a behavioral-health-focused nonprofit founded in 1975 (originally the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology) with a long-standing teaching partnership with the Stanford University School of Medicine
• The Clinical MSW is explicitly engineered to feed California's public behavioral-health workforce, training culturally responsive clinicians for underserved populations rather than offering a generic generalist track
• Delivered as a two-year online/hybrid program with synchronous evening classes plus three in-person 3-day immersion residencies per year, with field placements completed in California and supervised clinical experience available through The Clinics @ PAU

PAU's MSW is offered in an online or hybrid format, so graduates begin their ASW years from across California. It offers a one-year advanced-standing track for recent BSW graduates, who reach ASW registration sooner. Students aiming for the LCSW most often pursue the "Culturally Informed Behavioral Health Practice" concentration, the clearest clinical, direct-practice route within the program.

What Changes After You Graduate from PAU

Throughout your MSW, your program's field-education office handled the tracking that mattered. Your supervised placements, learning agreements, and hour logs lived inside whatever field-education platform your program adopted — Sonia, Tevera, IPT, GoReact, or a proprietary system — because CSWE accreditation, not the BBS, governed your field education. That system existed to satisfy your program and your accreditor, and it did its job.

Once your degree is conferred and you register as an Associate Clinical Social Worker, a different rulebook takes over. The California Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS) now defines what counts, how it's categorized, and how it must be documented. From that day forward you are responsible for:

• Post-degree hours only — the supervised-experience clock starts at ASW registration, not before.
• The BBS A/B/C categories — hours logged and totaled the way the BBS defines them, not the way your field platform did.
• The 750-hour psychotherapy sub-minimum — face-to-face individual or group psychotherapy, tracked within your clinical total.
• The 1,700-hour / 13-week LCSW-supervisor rule — a specific portion of your supervision must come from a licensed LCSW.
• The 104-week / 52-week minimums — at least 104 weeks of supervised experience, including at least 52 weeks of individual or triadic supervision.
• The official BBS forms — the ASW Weekly Log of Experience Hours and, at the end, the LCSW In-State Experience Verification.

Your BBS Licensure Path: LCSW

For PAU graduates, California's LCSW pathway is built entirely on post-degree experience — none of it overlaps the field hours you completed during your MSW. After you register as an ASW, you'll accrue 3,000 supervised hours over a minimum of 104 weeks. Of those 3,000, at least 2,000 must be clinical psychosocial diagnosis, assessment, and treatment — and within that clinical work, at least 750 hours must be face-to-face individual or group psychotherapy. Non-clinical hours (case management, documentation, program development) are capped at 1,000. You'll also need at least 52 of your 104 weeks to include individual or triadic supervision.

One requirement is distinctive to clinical social work: at least 1,700 of your 3,000 hours, spread across at least 13 weeks, must be supervised by a licensed LCSW. The remainder may be supervised by other BBS-qualified licensees under the Board's rules, but the LCSW-supervised portion is non-negotiable — so confirm your supervision plan early. For a full breakdown, see How to Track LCSW Hours in California.

HourJourney for PAU MSW Graduates

HourJourney is built for the California associate phase — the exact phase PAU MSW graduates enter after registering as an ASW. Every BBS requirement is baked in: A/B/C categorization with auto-calculated Column C, the 750-hour psychotherapy sub-minimum, the 1,700-hour / 13-week LCSW-supervisor rule, 104-week and 52-week supervision tracking, and one-click generation of the ASW Weekly Log of Experience Hours and the LCSW In-State Experience Verification.

As an ASW you're an associate from day one, so it's $7.95/month (or $79/year) — there's no separate pre-degree tier, because clinical social work has no pre-degree phase. 30-day free trial.

FAQ: PAU MSW Graduates & LCSW Licensure

Related guides