She has tried to pass three times and always just barely made it.
Multiple-choice answers do not reflect real-life scenarios that social workers face. Love said. Instead, the test focuses on the theoretical ideals of a profession long defined by white intellectuals seeking to do good deeds as defined by their worldview, always noble but also flawed. I’m guessing.
“As a Black person who comes from a Black background, a Black professor, this test is asking me to think like a white social worker in Idaho,” Love said. She works in the field, but doesn’t have the pay or opportunities that a license would give her. As president of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Area Black Social Workers Association, she often talks about her disconnect.
An emerging generation of practitioners is calling on the field’s gatekeepers who extol the virtues of evidence-based services to examine the facts.
From 2018 to 2021, 76 percent of white test takers passed the bachelor’s level exam on the first try.
According to an analysis by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB), which plans and administers licensing, these numbers are 52.8% for Hispanic test takers, 63.6% for American Indian test takers, 59.6% for Asian test takers, and 59.6% for Black test takers. This will drop to 33%. test.
Another issue is the 66 percent pass rate for people over 50, creating an obstacle in a popular field for people changing jobs or returning to work after their children have grown up.
All of these applicants, like Love, have college degrees in social work, extensive clinical training, and intense internships. And we’re going to need more of them.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, job openings for social workers are expected to triple in the next few years compared to other occupations.
Supporters of reconsidering licensure, including the National Association of Social Workers, argue that the exam was not written for all candidates, the communities in which they were trained, and the communities they hope to serve. There is.
“It’s very outdated,” said Valeria Carter, a social worker and director of clinical programs at Hillcrest Children and Families Center. Although he failed his first trial decades ago, there are now many talented university graduates who have logged thousands of clinical trials. I stumble for hours.
Rather than reaching stages of grief, they may answer questions about grief that are rooted in front-line experiences, she said. A framework developed by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in 1969.
The national evaluation of standardized testing extended to licensure exams in various fields across the country. Some states are reviewing their bar exams for attorneys. Just as universities create their own policies in the debate over cultural bias on the SAT, each state has its own rules regarding social workers.
Illinois eliminated the exam as a requirement for licensure and doubled the number of social workers in two years, according to the state’s chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.
The D.C. Council is considering something similar.
“This is a common-sense step that school districts can take to have a real and immediate impact on the social worker shortage,” said City Councilman Robert C. White Jr. (D) in introducing social work. Stated. Last year’s License Modernization Amendment Act.
Shortages are being felt acutely on many fronts in the nation’s capital, something dynamic D.C. officials acknowledge as the district’s housing program comes under scrutiny.
It was clear that authorities were having trouble clearing camps and housing people who had been living in tents. There were simply not enough qualified caseworkers to handle the load.
“In the last four years, 90 unlicensed social workers have applied,” said Will Doyle, a social worker with Pathways to Housing DC. “And we couldn’t hire any of them.”
This is more than a number. Clients need access to social workers who understand them.
The problem is acute in D.C.’s deaf community, one of the largest in the nation due to the presence of Gallaudet University.
“It’s been 20 years, and I’m still not a licensed clinician,” said Concetta Pucci, a field program assistant and instructor in the social work department at Gallaudet University. Mr. Pucci graduated with a master’s degree in social work from New York University in 2002, but failed his licensing exam five times. She currently has her Ph.D., but does not have her license yet.
“There are 20,000 deaf people living in the DMV region and 10 certified clinical social work workers who identify as deaf or are fluent in American Sign Language,” Pucci said. And five of them are on the faculty of Gallaudet University.
Although there is no data on pass rates for people with hearing loss, Judy Mounty, a Gallaudet University graduate now in private practice, has spent years researching, writing about, and testifying about the difficulty of the exam.
“This issue has left Maryland with more than 1,200 committed candidates, including people of color, older candidates, non-native English speakers, and the deaf and hard of hearing,” Mountie said in testimony in Maryland last year. “We have been deprived of competent mental health providers.” The district is considering a similar bill.
Most people who take the exam don’t want their licenses to be abolished completely. There are also arguments for a provisional license and calls for the association to bring together a more diverse group of social workers to rewrite the test to reflect real-life scenarios rather than classroom theory.
Testers admit there is a problem.
“This new analysis observes that some demographic groups have lower pass rates than others, and aims to address these differences while adhering to public protection obligations that guide ASWB’s mission. This highlights the need to identify potential actions that the ASWB can take,” President Loxroy A. Reed and CEO Stacey Hardy Chandler wrote in the foreword to the data study. .
Some experts worry that relaxing or eliminating licensing standards will further delegitimize an already marginalized and low-wage profession.
But let’s be honest. Social work is about something dynamic, unpredictable, and totally unique: humans.
Few people and they understand it better than love.