by Dwight J. Hymans, MSW, LCSW, ACSW, and Roxroy A. Reid, MSW, PhD, LCSW
ASWB’s imaginative and prescient is “All social staff are licensed as a way to shield purchasers and consumer methods.” Social work regulatory boards set up and implement requirements of competency, security, and moral habits for licensed follow. When the Affiliation of Social Work Boards (ASWB) was fashioned in 1979, solely 23 states had been regulating social work. At present, all jurisdictions regulate scientific follow—49 regulate grasp’s follow, and 44 regulate bachelor’s follow. The variety of licensees has grown to 541,635 in the USA, in accordance with ASWB’s most up-to-date experiences from social work regulatory boards.
Shoppers of social work providers usually should not have the choice to pick a social employee and can’t be anticipated to have the experience to guage a social employee’s competence. Licensing offers purchasers and the general public assurance of a licensee’s competence, in addition to recourse when a social employee behaves unethically or incompetently. ASWB’s Mannequin Social Work Observe Act, or mannequin regulation, contains three classes of license—Licensed Bachelors Social Employee, Licensed Masters Social Employee, and Licensed Medical Social Employee—and exempts solely college students from licensure and solely whereas they’re fulfilling expertise necessities to get licensed.
ASWB developed the mannequin regulation as a information to assist member boards and their legislative companions create and revise laws. A part of the mannequin regulation’s objective is to extend consistency of regulation from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. That consistency is the muse for attaining follow mobility. For that purpose, regulatory requirements are a spotlight space of ASWB’s 2022–2023 strategic framework with the target of monitoring and responding to the regulatory panorama to strengthen constant requirements throughout all jurisdictions.
Growing a social work licensing compact to assist follow mobility in collaboration with different social work organizations is one in all three methods ASWB has recognized to attain this goal. Work is already underneath method. In 2021, the Council of State Governments (CSG) chosen the social work occupation to obtain help in creating an interstate licensure compact with funding via the Division of Protection. Since then, ASWB has been working with CSG in live performance with different social work organizations to develop suggestions for drafting the mannequin compact laws.
The timing—through the COVID-19 pandemic—highlighted the necessity for higher flexibility in using digital follow and in bodily motion of social staff throughout jurisdictional boundaries to supply continuation of consumer providers. Growing mannequin compact laws for social work is partly a response to those modifications to follow supply.
ASWB’s position as a 501(c)(3) group is to scale back burdens on state governments. We work with our members to assist them discover options to their regulatory challenges. As we’ve realized through the pandemic, follow mobility is pivotal to growing workforce accessibility. It’s going to proceed to be wanted into the long run, and compacts will probably be a essential conduit.
Licensed social work will probably be a necessary factor of compact growth. The time is correct.
Dwight J. Hymans, MSW, LCSW, ACSW, is CEO of the Affiliation of Social Work Boards.
Roxroy A. Reid, MSW, PhD, LCSW, is president of the ASWB Board of Administrators and former chair of the New Mexico Board of Social Work Examiners.
