Date of Award

10-31-1997

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Social Work (MSW)

Department

Social Work

First Advisor

Ed Skarnulis

Second Advisor

Ken Root

Third Advisor

Pam Luinenburg

Abstract

In Minnesota a coalition of seven professional associations (i.e., National Association of Social Workers, Minnesota Conference on Social Work Education, Minnesota School Social Workers' Association, Minnesota Nursing Home Social Workers Association, Minnesota Society for Clinical Social Work, Minnesota Society for Social Work Administrators in Health Care, and the Minnesota Home Care Social Workers Association) are attempting to persuade state legislators to amend a current statute that exempts public social workers from social work licensure. Unlike Minnesota, a number of other states have licensing requirements for social workers employed by public human service agencies. A review of the literature shows that there are strong arguments against licensing in public human service agencies. The goal of this study was to conduct telephone interviews with key informants in states requiring licensure of public social workers to assess its benefits or problems. Thirty minute telephone interviews were conducted with the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and state regulatory board employees from 10 states. Results indicate that declassification occurs more often in states where there is low involvement between NASW, social work educators, and public human service agencies. Participants indicated that public agencies have difficulty recruiting social workers of color and social workers in general to work in rural areas and, therefore hire applicants with human service related degrees

Identifier

SC 11.MSW.1997.Cloutier.KG

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