Workforce Study Falls Short

A recent report, Assuring the Sufficiency of a Frontline Workforce: A National Study of Licensed Social Workers (2006), a project of NASW's Center for Workforce Studies and the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the State University of New York, University at Albany, identifies three major challenges facing the profession to ensure the future adequacy of social work personnel: (1) replacing the large number ready to retire; (2) recruiting new social workers, especially people of color and men; and (3) retaining the current workforce in an increasingly stressful environment. The report, based on a random sample of 10,000 licensed social workers from every state except Delaware and Hawaii, concludes, Clearly, the social work profession is at a crossroads. If there are to be adequate numbers of social workers to respond to the needs of clients in this decade and beyond, the sufficiency of this frontline workforce must not only be ensured, it must be prioritized. (p. 35) Although the report makes several valuable suggestions to meet the demands of the workforce, most are neither new nor particularly creative. This lack of vision diminishes the report's utility as a guide to strategic decision making. These problems stem from the design of the study itself and the authors' reluctance to challenge some of the profession's sacred cows and ask certain pointed, perhaps painful questions. Furthermore, the problems with the report are compounded by the failure to link the data to major policy decisions--inside and outside the profession--during the past several decades. The report asserts that "social worker" is defined so broadly that it is difficult to obtain reliable data on the current or future state of social services workforce needs. It bases its sweeping conclusions, however, on a survey of licensed social workers, who represent only 38 percent of the approximately 310,000 self-identified social workers in the United States (Center for Workforce Studies, 2006, p. 9). The report acknowledges that dramatic changes have occurred in the social services landscape, including demographic shifts, new service models, increased emphasis on accountability, and greater reliance on evidence-based practice. These findings have significant implications for the educational preparation of personnel. Yet, although there is widespread agreement that "new paradigms are necessary, [coupled with concern] that for-profit models could ultimately put profit ahead of serving the poor" ("Raising Money to Treat the World's Sickest People," 2006), the authors fail to recognize some of the implications of their data. As the report comments, there are clear divisions today in the distribution of primary responsibility for social service functions in the United States. Child welfare, criminal justice, and education remain predominantly the responsibility of the public sector. Mental health, health care, and alcohol and substance abuse are increasingly the responsibility of private sector agencies, many of them for-profit organizations that use a managed care model. Although the authors identify many serious changes that have emerged in the organizational environment of social workers, they do not link these problems to such major policy developments as budget cuts, devolution, privatization, managed care, economic globalization, and welfare reform. Social workers are experiencing greater work stress, less job security, declining levels of supervision and training, and decreases in compensation precisely because of these policy developments. The U.S. social welfare system is significantly different from what it was in 1980. The report's recommendations offer few ideas about how to overcome these structural obstacles. Most of those surveyed provide direct services in health and mental health, child and family welfare, and aging. The preponderance of this work appears to be more oriented toward psychotherapy than casework and is increasingly likely to occur in private practice or behavioral health clinics. …