ACTION ALERT: Call your legislator and ask them to #InvestinSocialWork

Current Act Now Campaigns: Social Work Legislative Alerts, Legislative, NASWNYS

 
SOCIAL WORKERS, this is urgent. Your profession needs you.  

As our #InvestinSocialWork campaign continues to gain momentum at the Capitol, we are facing continued, if not increased, opposition to halt our efforts to end the licensure exemption that allows seven state agencies to hire unlicensed employees to perform mental health services – including diagnosis and treatment of (serious) mental illness – and to request a substantial state investment into the social work profession.

To that end, we want to address some concerns that have been raised over the 14 years we have been advocating for an end to the exemption:

 

  • Myth: NASW-NYS wants to restrict access to care. 
    False. What we are looking to restrict is the number of diagnoses and treatments provided by unlicensed mental health providers.

 

  • Myth: NASW-NYS wants to delay care (inadvertently deny care). 
    False.     At the core of the Social Work Investment Initiative is improving the quality of mental health care for all New Yorkers by ensuring access to a licensed mental health provider. While the exemption is in place, agencies cannot guarantee that individuals will receive services from a person licensed to provide certain services, such as diagnosis.    Therefore, if you access services through one of the exempt agencies, you *may* see a licensed provider or you may see someone with no more than a high school diploma with some on-the-job training. NASW-NYS is seeking to put the equity back in NY’s mental health system. If we want to talk about delay to care, let’s talk about the delay in fully implementing the 2002 social work licensing law. In 2002, The NYS Legislature declared licensure would help ensure quality care for New Yorkers, and yet the exemption extended to state agencies flies in the face of that intent. To date, the state has had 14 years to come into compliance.

 

  • Myth: NASW-NYS is seeking an exclusive authorization of only one of the many licensed mental health professions.
    False.     The licensure exemption impacts ALL mental health professionals licensed in New York State. 

 

  • Myth: Other licensed professionals and family peer specialists are available and are well-trained and have experience.
    We recognize the importance of other licensed professionals and family peer specialists in the continuum of care and there are many tasks they are qualified to do. But let’s remember that NYS has some of the most stringent licensing requirements and professional standards for social work in the country: a two-year master’s degree education, 2000 supervised hours of diagnosis and treatment in the field, and a nationwide standardized test – all of which cannot be substituted by “on the job training”. Licensure signifies the provider has gone through statutorily designated education, experience, and examination in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness (increasing the likelihood of an accurate diagnosis). No matter the quality controls, unlicensed individuals cannot accurately diagnose and develop an accurate treatment plan for serious mental illness.

 


 

Here’s what you can do: Join us on Tuesday, February 6 for our next Social Work Investment Initiative Call-In Day and share the following call-in information widely! 

 

What are we asking? 

We are asking New York State legislators to end the licensure exemption that allows seven state agencies to hire non-licensed providers and vote in favor of the Social Work Investment Initiative.

 

Where can I find more information about the Call-In Day? 

 

What other information can you provide me? 

  • Currently, agencies have until July 1, 2018, to come into compliance with the 2002 social work licensing laws. Our job is to ensure the exemption ends this year and no more extensions are given to the state agencies.
  • Visit www.naswnys.org/invest for more information and resources to assist you with your advocacy.
  • We also encourage you to take time to read the Social Work Investment Initiative Advocacy Toolkit (free to download!) for resources and information on how you can take charge of advocating for your profession. The toolkit provides samples of writing a letter to the editor, building awareness through your social media platforms, or writing a piece on the licensure exemption, like the one Marcia Schwartzman Levy, NASW-NYS member, wrote: A Minute with… Marcia Schwartzman Levy.
  • Call your legislator anytime! We may have designated call-in days, but that does not mean you cannot pick up the phone today and call your legislator’s office.

 

This exemption renders the professional standards moot – rendering YOUR license moot. But together, we can stop this from happening. Let’s get the state to end the exemption and #InvestinSocialWork.

 

 

 

 

In December 2017, NASW-NYS launched the #InvestinSocialWork campaign, a public awareness and advocacy campaign that seeks to end the licensure exemption and implement the Social Work Investment Initiative. We are counting on our members to join in our advocacy efforts. For more information about our campaign, visit www.naswnys.org/invest

News From Capitol: Report on 2018-19 Executive Budget Proposal

Legislative

Governor’s Executive Budget Proposal for FY 2018-19

Report on 2018-19 Executive Budget Proposal

On Tuesday, January 16, 2018, Governor Cuomo released his Executive budget proposal for fiscal years 2018-19, totaling $168.2 billion (all funds), keeping the rate of growth in spending for state operating funds below 2 percent at 1.9 percent, while providing for a 3 percent increase in education aid and 3.2 percent increase in State Medicaid spending pursuant to the Medicaid Global Spending Cap. Meanwhile, the Executive budget proposal also includes a plan to close the $4.4 billion budget deficit through $2.7 billion in spending changes, $0.7 million in resource changes, and $1 billion in revenue raisers (i.e. new taxes and fees). Click the report below to learn more and see what specific areas are of interest to NASW-NYS/the social work profession. 

 

 

 

NEW CE Program: Learning Wednesday Series with Dr. Joe Hunter

Continuing Education, NASWNYS

We are thrilled to announce a brand-new continuing education series, “Learning Wednesday Series with Dr. Joe Hunter”

 

Our members asked for more opportunities to engage with knowledgeable colleagues in the profession, in creative and convenient ways – and we heard you!

 

As a part of our 2018 Continuing Education Program, we are pleased to be launching a new initiative – Learning Wednesday Series with Dr. Joseph ‘Joe’ Hunter, LCSW, PhD. This online, bi-monthly series offers live Continuing Education in a broad array of topic areas on a consistent schedule. Dr. Hunter is a foremost expert in his field, and we are excited to have been able to partner with him to share his expertise with our membership.

 

Each workshop will take place on a Wednesday from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST and is available for 1.5 continuing education contact hours. This series is available to NASW-NYS members for $10/workshop.

 

Registration is now open for the first five workshops of this series! For more information, please visit www.naswnys.org/learningwednesday.

A Minute with… Marcia Schwartzman Levy, LCSW-R

Member Spotlight, NASWNYS

A Minute with… is a segment that allows social workers to share their insights, stories, and perspectives from their field/ practice area. This month, we are featuring Marcia Schwartzman Levy, LCSW-R, a licensed clinical social worker, whose primary work has been in a public hospital system, with private practice and consulting on the side, and her piece on the social work licensure exemption. 

We all remember that moment — the first time we approached a “real” client or patient, armed with our knowledge, buoyed by our reading, research and studies, ready to put it all into action. But somehow it wasn’t that easy. We counted on the guidance and wisdom of our field instructor to work patiently to turn us into competent, beginning social workers. Later on, after our graduation, when we were actually hired, how daunting it was to discover that there was still so much to learn! The wisdom and counsel of the licensed, experienced social worker who supervised us kept us on track as we discussed our efforts to aid our clients and achieve positive results; it was also what guarded against inadvertently harming our clients, despite our sincere good will and best intentions.

I have been very fortunate to be part of that on-the-job learning process as a clinical supervisor for many years, watching “newbies” turn into professional men and women I am so proud to have mentored along the way — encouraging them, pushing them, urging them to prepare for licensing exams at the first eligible moment, and yes, encouraging a few who needed more than one attempt to keep at it until they succeeded. I could wallpaper a mansion with the process recordings I have scrupulously commented on and written over. I may have spent more hours in supervision with aspiring professionals than I have around my own dinner table at this point. I have saved the notes they have written to me over the years describing their continued growth, and the new social workers to whom they have now “paid it forward.” It’s the professional version of becoming a grandmother!

So it is with sadness and disbelief that I think about those who work in state agencies where becoming a licensed social worker is considered an unnecessary and unaffordable “luxury.”

From my vantage point of social work educator and supervisor, I feel how painfully unfair it is to those who rely on these agencies for the care they need.

I have had an inside view of the difficult process and careful safeguards it takes to create competent professionals — and that’s when the correct educational experience sets the stage. Can you imagine if that background were missing? Or if only those without appropriate licenses were the ones assisting the most vulnerable among us?

I believe it shows a real misunderstanding of the nature of social work as a profession to act as if it is something any good-hearted person can do well if they just sit down and try hard enough. It also shows a disdain for the most vulnerable among us that a bifurcated system is allowed to remain in place when it comes to some people’s care.

A licensing exemption that was meant to be a temporary transition from one system to another appears to have become a way of life, and both the profession of social work and our clients are the poorer for it in New York. I certainly hope we will see this injustice corrected.

 

Marcia Schwartzman Levy, LCSW-R

Join NASW-NYS at the Women’s March in Washington Park (Albany, NY) on January 20!

Central Division, Divisions, Genesee Valley Division, Hudson Valley Division, Mohawk Valley Division, Nassau Division, NASWNYS, Northeast Division, Southern Tier Division, Suffolk Division, Westchester Division, Western Division

 

Photo courtesy of the 2018 Women’s March / Rally in Albany, NY Facebook Event

Bring your family and friends and join NASW-NYS on January 20th at 1:00 p.m. for the 2018 Women’s March / Rally in Albany, NY! 
 

NASW-NYS Members are encouraged to stop by at the Chapter office (188 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12210) before the march/rally to receive an I Am Social Work t-shirt*!  We will also be serving coffee/tea/hot cocoa throughout the day, so come on by!

 

 

March/Rally information:

Route information: The 2018 Women’s March/Rally in Albany will march around the NYS Capitol, from Capitol West Park East on Washington Ave to Eagle St, across Eagle and then west on State St. Back up to Swan St. Please refer to the 2018 Women’s March/Rally in Albany, N.Y. event for the most accurate and up-to-date information regarding the event. 

The march/rally does not pass the NASW-NYS Chapter office, but our building is within walking distance to the to NYS Capitol. See map below for reference.

 

Organizer Information

For event information contact womensmarch2.0@gmail.com

Let them know you’re coming! Register at http://womensmarchalbany.eventbrite.com/ (Free!)

Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/159662234765764/ 

*While supplies last; limited quantities available. One T-shirt per person

NASW-NYS Diversity Committee: Call for Leadership

Central Division, Divisions, Genesee Valley Division, Hudson Valley Division, Mohawk Valley Division, Nassau Division, NASWNYS, Northeast Division, Southern Tier Division, Suffolk Division, Westchester Division, Western Division

 

Deadline for submission is Friday, February 9, 2018

Are you passionate about equal rights and equal representation for people of all backgrounds? Are you interested in mobilizing NYS social workers around issues of race, diversity, and intersectionality?

NASW-NYS is looking for leadership to join our Diversity Committee to help guide and develop strategies to combat discrimination, marginalization, and oppression.

Our Chapter recognizes the need to maintain a focus on diversity as well as view our programs and trainings through the lens of diversity, but we cannot do this alone. We are asking for our members to take action and join NASW-NYS’s Diversity Committee and help support and develop strategies around the many issues of diversity our country faces.

We are seeking candidates who can represent the broad spectrum of our profession. 

If you are interested in this position, please review the job description and send a cover letter and resume to Romel Wilson, LMSW, Member Relations Specialist at rwilson.naswnys@socialworkers.org by February 9th, 2018. If you would like to learn more, please contact via email or by phone at 518-463-4741 ext. 18.