Virginia Olivas, MSW
Assistant Professor, Field Education, L.A. DCFS Stipend Coordinator, MSW Program, Department of Social Work
Virginia Olivas, MSW, is in her tenth year as a member of the Azusa Pacific University field practicum faculty in the MSW program. She serves as the program coordinator of the L.A. DCFS/UCLA Academy of Workforce Excellence Child Welfare Stipend Program. Virginia teaches the child welfare class for the BSW program, Generalist Practicum I and II for the full-time generalist foundation year MSW cohort, as well as the generalist foundation year DCFS child welfare supplemental seminar class.
As a bilingual and bicultural social worker, Virginia has over twenty-five years of experience in child welfare, with a specialization in adoptions and working with the Latino community. For twelve years, she supervised MSW students from various local universities. Virginia has a background as a program manager for a non–profit resource family agency. She continues to work as a permanency-planning mediator where she mediates post-adoption contact agreements, which serve to honor connections for adoptees with their birth families. Virginia is passionate about child welfare as a professional and as an adoptive parent.
Education
- MSW, California State University, Long Beach
- BA, University of California, Los Angeles, Communication Studies
Academic Area
- School of Behavioral Sciences
Expertise
- Child Welfare
- Practicum Education
Courses Taught
- SOCW 517 – Generalist Practicum I
- SOCW 518 – Generalist Practicum II
- SOCW 351 – Child Welfare